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LOVELL’S LIBRARY.-CATALOGUE. 








1 . 

2. 

8 , 

4. 

6 . 

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7. 

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29. 
80. 
SI. 
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3.3. 

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61. 

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63. 

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55. 

56. 

67, 

68: 

59, 

60, 

61. 


ZiTperiotf, by 11. W. LoTipfelIow..20 
OutiV'Mer, by H. W, Li«iigfeilow.20 
The iLsppy Loy, by BjOruson. , . . 10 

Arne, by BjOrnson 10 

Frankenstein, by Mrs. Sshelley. . . 10 

The Last of the Mohicans 20 

Clytie. by Joseph Hatfon 20 

The Moonstone, by i ollins, P‘t 1. 10 
The Moonstone, by Collins. P’tll.lO 
Oliver Twist, by Charles Dickens. 20 

The Coming Race, by Lytton 10 

I.eila, by Lord Lylton — .10 

? he Three' Spaniards, by Walker. 20 
heTricks of the GroeksUnveiled.20 
I,’Abb6 Constantin, by Halevy.,20 
Freckles, by R. F Redcliff,. ..20 
The Dark Colleen, by Harriett Jay. 20 
They Were Marrir d! by Walter 

Besant and Jaine.s Rice 10 

Seekers after 0^0.4, by b; rrar 20 

The Spanish Nun, by DeQnlncey.lO 

The Green Mountain Boys vO 

Fleurettd, by Eugene Scribe 20 

Second Thoughts, by Broughton. 20 
The New Magdalen, by Collins.. 20 

Divorce, by M argaret Lee 20 

Life of Washington, by Denley. 20 
Social Etiquette, by Mrs. Saville.15 
Single Heart and Double Face.. 10 

Irene, by Carl Detlef 20 

\'ice Versa, by F. Anstey 20 

Ernest MaUrav' rs, by Lord Lytton20 
The t'^aunted House nndCaldt ron 
the Courtier, by Lord Lytton. , 10 
John Halifax, bv Miss Miilock. . ,20 

SOO Leagues on the Amazon ■ 10 

The Cryptogram, by Jnles Verne. 10 

Life of Marion, by Horry 20 

Paul and Virginia — 10 

Tale of Two Cities, by Dickens. .2 * 

The Hermits, by Kingsley,. 20 

An Adventure in Thule, and Mar- 
riage of Moira Fergns, Black .10 

A Marriage in High Life 20 

Robin, by Mrs. Parr 20 

Two on a Tower, by Thos, Hardy .20 
Rasselas, by Samuel Johnson .... 10 
Alice; or, the Mysteries, being 
Part II. of Ernest Maltravtr3..20 
Duke of' Knndos, by A. Mathey...20 

Baron Munchausen 10 

APiince-ss of Thule, by Black.. 20 
The Secret Despatch, by Grant, 20 
Early Davs of Chrisiianily, by 
Canon Farrar, I) D , Part 1. . . .20 
Early Days of Christianit-^ , Pt. II. 20 
Vicar of Wakefield, by Goldsmith. 10 
J’rogrees and Poverty, by Henry 

George ; .20 

The . Spy, by Cooper 20 

East Lynne, by Mrs. Wood... 20 
A Strange Story, by Lord Lytton.. .20 

Adam Bede, by Eliot, 'Parti 15 

Adam Bede, Part li’ . .15 

The Golden Shaft, by Gibbon — 20 

Portia, by The Duchess 20 

Last Days of Pompeii, by Lytton.. 20 
The Two Duchesses, by Mathey. .20 
Tom Brown’s School 'Days — 20 


62. 


63. 

64 

65. 

66 . 

67. 

68 . 

69. 

70. 

71. 

72. 

73. 

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75. 

76. 
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412. 


The Wooing O’t, by Mrs. Alex- 
ander, Parti ......IB 

The Wooing O r, Part II IS 

The Vendetta, by Balzac 20 

Ilypatia,by L has. Kiim- ley ,Pt 1 . 15 
Hypatia, by Kingsley. Part IL. ..lo 

Selma, by Mrs. d. G. Smith 16 

Margaret and her Bridefmaids. .20 
Horse Snoe Robinson, Part I.... 15 
Horse Shoe Robinson, Part II. ..15 

Gulliver's Travels, by Swift, 20 

Amos Barton, by George Eliot... 10 

Tlie Berber, by W E. Mayo 20 

Silas Mitmer, by Geurge Eliot. . .10 

The Queen of the County 20 

Life of Cromwell, by Hood... 1.5 
Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Broiitd.20 

Child’s History of Etigiand 20 

Molly Bawn, by The Duchess. . .20 
Pill. me, by William BergsOfe... . .15 

Phyllis, by The Duel ers 20 

pomola, by Geo. Eliot, Pa.'t I. . . 16 
Romola, b}' Geo. Eliot, Part II. .1,5 

Science in'Short Chapters 20 

Zannni. by Lcr.l Ly‘ton. 20 

A Daughter of Heth 1 20 

The Right and Wrong Uses of 
the Bible, R. Heber Newton. . .20 

Night and - Morning. Pt. I 15 

Night and Morning, Part II 15 

Shandon Bells, by Wm. Black., 20 

Monica, by the Duchess 10 

Heart and ; cience, by Collins... 20 
Tlie ijlolden Calf, by Braddou. . .20 

The Deal's Daughter .20 

Mr.s. Geoffrey, by The Duchess. .20 

Pickwick Papers, Purt 1 20 

Pickwick Papers, Fart IT 20 

Airy, Fairy Lilian, The Duchess 20 
McLeod br Dare, by Win. Black 20 
TempesfiTi^ssed, by Tilton P tl 20 
Tempest Tossed, by Tilton, P'tllgO 
Letters from High Latitudes, by 

Lord Dufferiu 20 

Gideon Flevce, by Lucy 2C 

India and Ceylon, by E. Hseckel. .20 

The Gypsy Queen 20 

The AamiraPs W^ard., 20 

Tviinport, by E.L, Bynner, P’tI..15 
Nimport. by E.L. Bynner, Pt 11. 16 

Harry Holbrooke 29 

Tritons, by K. L. Bynner, P'tT. ..IS 
Tritons, by E. L. Bynner, P tn..l5 
Let Notliing Yon Dismay, by 

Walteivpesant 10 

LadyAudl*.y s Secret, by Miss 

M. E. Braddon 20 

Woman’s Place To-day, by Mrs. 

Liilie Devereux Wake' 20 

Dunallan, by Kennedy, Parti. . .15 
Dnnallan, by Kennedy, Part II. .15 
Housekeeping and Home mak- 
ing. by Marion Harlaud 16 

No N^w Thing, by W. E. Norris. 20 
The SpoopendykePapersf. .20 
False Ilopes, by Goldwm Smith. 16 

Labor ana Capital 20 

Wanda, by Onida,;Part I. ...... ,15 

Wanda, by Ouida, Part 11 15 


! 



All women know that it is beauty, rather than genius, which all generations 
of men have worshipped in the sex. Can it be wondered at, then, that so much 
of woman’s time and attention should be directed to the means of developing 
and preserving that beautyl The most important adjunct to beauty is a clear, 
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Ladies afflicted with Tan, Freckles, Rough or Discolored Skin, should lose 
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LAIRD’S BLOOM OF YOUTH. 

It will immediately obliterate all such imperfections, and is entirely harm- 
less. It has been chemically analyzed by the Board of Health of New York City, 
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Over two million ladies have used this delightful toilet preparation, and in 
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ful, give liAIRD’S BLOOM OF YOUTH a trial, and be convinced of its won- 
derful efficacy. Sold by Fancy Groods Dealers and Druggists everywhere. 

Price, 75c, per Bottle. Depot, 83 John St., N, Y. 


FAIR FACES, 

And fair, in the literal and most pleasing sense, are 
those kept fresh and pure by the use of 

BUCHAN'S CARBOLIC TOILET SOAP 

This article, which for the past fifteen years has 
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Is pleasantly perfumed ; and neither when using or afterwards is the slight- 
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breath, and is in every way an unrivalled dental preparation. 

BUCHAN’S CARBOLIC HEDICINAL SOAP cures all 
Eruptions and Skin Diseases. 



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THE 


CHRISTMAS BOOKS 

OF 


MR, M. A. TITMARSH. 


Mrs. PERKINS’S BALL. OUR STREET. Dr. BIRCH. 
THE KICKLEBURYS ON THE RHINE. 


WILLIAM ^MAKEPEACE THACKERAY. 

WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY THE AUTHOR. 


NEW YORK: 

JOHN W. LOVELL COMPANY, 

14 AND 16 Vesey Street. 




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LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 


MRS. PERKINS’S BALL. 

Grand Polka {Frontispiece). 


The Mulligan and Miss Fanny Perkins 22 

Mr. Frederick Minchin 17 

The Ball-Room Door 19 

Lady Bacon, the Miss Bacons, and Mr. Flam 20 

Mr. Larkins 21 

Miss Bunion ... 22 

Mr. Hicks 23 

Miss Meggot 24 

Miss Ranville, Rev. Mr. Toop, Miss Mullins, and Mr. Winter. 25 

Miss Joy, Mr. and Mrs. Joy, Mr. Botter 26 

Mr. Ranville Ranville and Jack Hubbard 27 

Mrs. Trotter, Miss Trotter, Miss Toady, Lord Methuselah. ... 28 

Mr. Beaumoris, Mr. Grig, Mr. Flynders 29 

Cavalier Seul 31 

M. Canaillard, Lieutenant Baron de Bobwitz 32 

The Boudoir — Mr. Smith, Mr. Brown, Miss Bustleton 33 

George Grundsell 35 

Miss Martin and Young Ward 37 

The Mulligan and Mr. Perkins 38 


OUR STREET. 

A Street Courtship 47 

Captain and Mrs. Bragg of Our Street 48 

A Studio in Our Street 50 

Some of our Gentlemen 53 

Why our Nursemaids like Kensington Gardens 55 

A Street Ceremony 56 

The Lady whom Nobody knows 58 

The Man in Possession 62 

The Lion of the Street 65 

The Dove of the Street 67 

Venus and Cupid 69 

The Siren of Our Street 70 

The Street-Door Key 71 

A Scene of Passion 73 

The Happy Family 73 


X 


LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS, 


DR. BIRCH. 


A Young Raphael To Jace pa^e 

The Dear Brothers „ 

A Serious Case ^ 

A Hamper for Briggs’s. 

' Sure to Succeed in Life. . . .' 

The Pirate . . o , . 

Home, Sweet Home 

A Rescue 

Wanted, a Governess . 


5 ^ 

85 

89 


•Ql 


93 

95 


96 


97 


103 


THE KICKLEBURYS ON TPIE RHINE. 


My Lady the Countess 126 

More Wind than is Pleasant 127 

“ We call those Uglies ! Captain Hicks ” 129 

Hirsch and the Luggage 134 

An Hereditary Legislator ‘37 

The Reinecks )8 

A Specimen of a Briton ^ ;o 

The Interior of Hades V43 

The Water Cure 147 

The German Peasant Maiden 151 

Charge of Noirbourg 1 . 152 

The Old Story 153 

The Princess of Mogador 160 

“ Schlafen .sie wohl ” 161 






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i 



THE MULLIGAN AND M?v U A- TTTUAESH. 


Mrs. PERKINS’S BALL. 


THE MULLIGAN {OF BALLYMULLLGAN), AND 
HOW WE WENT TO MRS, EERKINS’S BALL, 

I DO not know where Ballymulligan is, and never knew any- 
body who did. Once I asked the Mulligan the question, when 
that chieftain assumed a look of dignity so ferocious, and spoke 
of “ Saxon curiawsitee ” in a tone of such evident displeasure, 
that, as after all it can matter very little to me whereabouts lies 
the Celtic principality in question, I have never pressed the in- 
quiry any farther. 

I don’t know even the Mulligan’s town residence. One 
night, as he bade us adieu in Oxford Street, — “ I live 
says he, pointing down towards Uxbridge, with the big stick he 
carries : — so his abode is in that direction at any rate. He has 
his letters addressed to several of his friends’ houses, and his 
parcels, &c., are left for him at various taverns which he fre- 
quents. That pair of checked trousers, in which you see him 
attired, he did me the favor of ordering from my own tailor, 
who is quite as anxious as anybody to know the address of the 
wearer. In like manner my hatter asked me, “Oo was the 
Hirish gent as ’ad ordered four ’ats and a sable boar to be 
sent to my lodgings ? ” As I did not know (however I might 
guess), the articles have never been sent, and the Mulligan has 
withdrawn his custom from the “ infernal four-and-nine-penny 
scoundthrel,” as he calls him. The hatter has not shut up shop 
in consequence. 

I became acquainted with the Mulligan through a distin- 
guished countryman of his, who, strange to say, did not know 
the chieftain himself. But dining with my friend Fred Clancy, 
of the Irish bar, at Greenwich, the Mulligan came up, “ inthro- 
juiced ” himself to Clancy as he said, claimed relationship with 

(u) 


12 MRS . PERKINS'S BALL . 

him on the side of Brian Boroo, and drawing his chair to our 
table, quickly became intimate with us. He took a great liking 
to me, was good enough to find out my address and pay me a 
visit : since which period often and often on coming to break- 
fast in the morning I have found him in my sitting-room on the 
sofa engaged with the rolls and morning papers : and many a 
time, on returning home at night for an evening’s quiet reading, 
1 have discovered this honest fellow in the arm-chair before the 
fire, perfuming the apartment with my cigars and trying the 
quality of such liquors as might be found on the sideboard. 
The way in which he pokes fun at Betsy, the maid of the lodg- 
ings, is prodigious. She begins to laugh whenever he comes ; 
if he calls her a duck, a divvle, a darlin’, it is all one. He is 
just as much a master of the premises as the individual who 
rents them at fifteen shillings a week ; and as for handker- 
chiefs, shirt-collars, and the like articles of fugitive haberdash- 
ery, the loss since I have known him is unaccountable. I sus- 
pect he is like the cat in some houses : for, suppose the whiskey, 
the cigars, the sugar, the tea-caddy, the pickles, and other 
groceries disappear, all is laid upon that edax-rerum of a Mulli- 
gan. 

The greatest offence that can be offered to him is to call him 
Mr. Mulligan. “ Would you deprive me, sir,” says he, “ of the 
title which was bawrun be me princelee ancestors in a hundred 
thousand battles ? In our own green valleys and fawrests, in 
the American savannahs, in the sierras of Speen and the flats 
of Flandthers, the Saxon has quailed before me war-cry of 
Mulligan Aboo ! Mr. Mulligan ! I’ll pitch anybody out of 
the window who calls me Mr. Mulligan.” He said this, and 
uttered the slogan of the Mulligans with a shriek so terrific, 
that my uncle (the Rev. W. Gruels, of the Independent Congre- 
gation, Bungay), who had happened to address him in the 
above obnoxious manner, while sitting at my apartments drink- 
ing tea after the May meetings, instantly quitted the room, and 
has never taken the least notice of me since, except to state to 
the rest of the family that I am doomed irrevocably to perdition. 

Well, one day last season, I had received from my kind and 
most estimable friend, Mrs. Perkins of Pocklington Square 
(to whose amiable family I have had the honor of giving les- 
sons in drawing, French, and the German flute), an invitation 
couched in the usual terms, on satin gilt-edged note-paper, to 
her evening-party ; or, as I call it, “ Ball.” 

Besides the engraved note sent to all her friends, my kind 
patroness had addressed me privately as follows ; — 


MRS. PERKINS’S BALL, 


13 


“My dear Mr. Tii-marsh, — If you know any very eligible young man, we give you 
leave to bring him. You gentlemen love your clubs so much now, and care so little for 
dancing, that it is really quite a scandal. Come early, and before everybodyt and give ua 
the benefit of all your taste and continental skill, 

“ Your sincere 

Emily Perkins.” 

“ Whom shall I bring ? ” mused I, highly flattered by this 
mark of confidence ; and I thought of Bob Trippett ; and little 
Fred Spring, of the Navy Pay Office; Hulker, who is rich, and 
I knew took lessons in Paris ; and a half score of other bachelor 
friends, who might be considered as very eligible — when I was 
roused from my meditation by a slap of a hand on my shoulder ; 
and looking up, there was the Mulligan, who began, as usual, 
reading the papers on my desk. 

“ Hwhat’s this ? ” says he. “ Who’s Perkins ? Is it a sup- 
per-ball, or only a tay-ball ? ” 

“ The Perkinses of Pocklington Square, Mulligan, are tip- 
top people,” says I, with a tone of dignity. “ Mr. Perkins’s 
sister is married to a baronet. Sir Giles Bacon, of Hogwash, 
Norfolk. Mr. Perkins’s uncle was Lord Mayor of London j 
and he was himself in Parliament, and may be again any day. 
The family are my most particular friends. A tay-ball indeed! 
why, Gunter * * * ” Here I stopped : I felt I was com- 

mitting myself. 

“ Gunter ! ” says the Mulligan, with another confounded 
slap on the shoulder. Don’t say another word ; /’// go widg 
you, my boy.” 

“ ybu go. Mulligan ? ” says I : “ why, really — I — it’s not my 
party.” 

“Your hwhawt? hwhat’s this letter.? ain’t I an eligible 
young man ? — Is the descendant of a thousand kings unfit com- 
pany for a miserable tallow-chandthlering cockney? Are ye 
joking wid me ? for, let me tell ye, I don’t like them jokes. 
D’ye suppose I’m not as well bawrun and bred as yourself, or 
any Saxon friend ye ever had ? ” 

“ I never said you weren’t. Mulligan,” says I. 

“ Ye don’t mean seriously that a Mulligan is not fit com- 
pany for a Perkins ? ” 

“ My dear fellow, how could you think I could so far insult 
you ? ” says I. “ Well then,” says he, “ that’s a matter settled, 
and we go.” 

What the deuce was I to do ? I wrote to Mrs. Perkins ; 
and that kind lady replied, that she would receive the Mulli- 
gan, or any other of my friends, with the greatest cordiality. 
“ Fancy a party, all Mulligans 1 ” thought I, with a secret terror. 


AND MRS. PERKINS, THEIR HOUSE, 
AND THEIR YOUNG PEOPLE. 


Following Mrs. Perkins’s orders, the present writer made 
his appearance very early at Pocklington Square : where the 
tastiness of all the decorations elicited my warmest admiration. 
Supper of course was in the dining-room, superbly arranged 
by Messrs. Grigs and Spooner, the confectioners of the neigh- 
borhood. I assisted my respected friend Mr. Perkins and the 
butler in decanting the sherry, and saw, not without satisfac- 
tion, a large bath for wine under the sideboard, jn which were 
already placed very many bottles of champagne. 

The Back Dining-room, Mr. P.’s study (where the ven- 
erable man goes to sleep after dinner), was arranged on this 
occasion as a tea-room, Mrs. Flouncey (Miss Fanny’s maid) 
officiating in a cap and pink ribbons, which became her exceed- 
ingly. Long, long before the arrival of the company, I remarked 
Master Thomas Perkins and Master Giles Bacon, his cousin 
(son of Sir Giles Bacon, Bart.), in this apartment, busy among 
the macaroons. 

Mr. Gregory the butler, besides John the footman and Sir 
Giles’s large man in the Bacon livery, and honest Grundsell, 
carpet-beater and green-grocer, of Little Pocklington Buildings, 
had at least half a dozen of aides-de-camp in black with white 
neckcloths, like doctors of divinity. 

The Back Drawing-room door on the landing being taken 
off the hinges (and placed up stairs under Mr. Perkins’s bed), 
the orifice was covered with muslin, and festooned with elegant 
wreaths of flowers. This was the Dancing Saloon. A linen 
was spread over the carpet ; and a band — consisting of Mr. 
Clapperton, piano, Mr. Pinch, harp, and Herr Spoff, cornet-a- 
piston — arrived at a pretty early hour, and were accommodated 
with some comfortable negus in the tea-room, previous to the 
commencement of their delightful labors. The boudoir to the 
left was fitted up as a card-room ; the drawing-room was of 
course for the reception of the company, — the chandeliers 
and yellow damask being displayed this night in all theb 


MRS. PERKINSES BALL. 


15 

splendor ; and the charming conservatory over the landing 
was ornamented by a few moon-like lamps, and the flowers 
arranged so that it had the appearance of a fairy bower. And 
Miss Perkins (as I took the liberty of stating to her mamma) 
looked like the fairy of that bower. It is this young creature’s 
first year in public life: she has been educated, regardless of 
expense, at Hammersmith ; and a simple white muslin dress 
and blue ceinture set off charms of which I beg to speak with 
respectful admiration. 

My distinguished friend the Mulligan of Ballymulligan was 
good enough to come the very first of the party. By the way, 
how awkward it is to be the first of the party ! and yet you 
know somebody must ; but for my part, being timid, I always 
wait at the corner of the street in the cab, and watch until some 
other carriage comes up. 

Well, as we were arranging the sherry in the decanters down 
the supper-tables, my friend arrived : “ Hwhares me friend 

Mr. Titmarsh ?” I heard him bawling out to Gregory in the 
passage, and presently he rushed into the supper-room, where 
Mr. and Mrs. Perkins and myself were, and as the waiter 
was announcing “ Mr. Mulligan,” “ THE Mulligan of Bally- 
mulligan, ye blackguard ! ” roared he, and stalked into the 
apartment, “ apologoizing,” as he said, for introducing himself. 

Mr. and Mrs. Perkins did not perhaps wish to be seen in 
this room, which was for the present only lighted by a couple 
of candles ; but he was not at all abashed by the circumstance, 
and grasping them both warmly by the hands, he instantly 
made himself at home. “ As friends of my dear and talented 
friend Mick,” so he is pleased to call me, “ I’m deloighted, 
madam, to be made known to ye. Don’t consider me in the 
light of a mere acquaintance ! As for you, my dear madam, 
you put me so much in moind of my own blessed mother, now 
resoiding at Ballymulligan Castle, that I begin to love ye at first 
soight.” At which speech Mr. Perkins getting rather alarmed, 
asked the Mulligan, whether he would take some wine, or go 
up stairs. 

“ Faix,” says Mulligan, “ it’s never too soon for good dhrink.” 
And (although he smelt very much of whiskey already) he drank 
a tumbler of wine “ to the improvement of an acqueentence 
which comminces in ^ manner so deloightful.” 

“ Let’s go up stairs, Mulligan,” says I, and led the noble 
Irishman to the upper apartments, which were in a profound 
gloom, the candles not being yet illuminated, and where wo 
surprised Miss Fanny, seated in the twilighi ^t the piano, 


i6 


A//^S. PE RAINS'S BALL, 


timidly trying the tunes of the polka which she danced so 
exquisitely that evening. She did not perceive the stranger 
at first ; but how she started when the Mulligan loomed upon 
her! 

“ Heavenlee enchanthress I ” says Mulligan, “ don’t floy at 
the approach of the humblest of your sleeves I Reshewm your 
pleece at that insthrument, which weeps harmonious, or smoils 
melojious, as you charrum it I Are you acqueented with the 
Oirish Melodies ? Can ye play, ‘ Who fears to talk of Nointy- 
eight?’ the ‘Shan Van Voght?’ or the ‘Dirge of 011am 
Fodhlah?’” 

“ Who’s this mad chap that Titmarsh has brought ? ” I 
heard Master Bacon exclaim to Master Perkins. “ Look ! how 
frightened Fanny looks ! ” 

“O poo! gals are always frightened,” Fanny’s brother 
replied ; but Giles Bacon, more violent, said, “ I’ll tell you 
what, Tom : if this goes on, we must pitch into him.” And 
so I have no doubt they would, when another thundering 
knock coming, Gregory rushed into the room and began 
lighting all the candles, so as to produce an amazing brilliancy, 
Miss Fanny sprang up and ran to her mamma, and the young 
e;entlemen slid down the banisters to receive the company in 
the hall. 









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“ What name shall I enounce?” 

“ Don’t hurry the gentleman — don’t you see he ain’t buttoned his strap yet ? ” 

“ Say Mr. Frederick Minchin.” (This is spoken with much dignity.) # 



EVERYBODY BEGINS TO COME, BUT 
ESPECIALLY MR. MLNCHIN. 


“ It’s only me and my sisters,” Master Bacon said ; though 
“only” meant eight in this instance. All the young ladies 
had fresh cheeks and purple elbows ; all had white frocks, with 
hair more or less auburn ; and so a party was already made of 
this blooming and numerous family, before the rest of the 
company began to arrive. The three Miss Meggots next came 
in their fly ; Mr. Blades and his niece from 19 in the square : 
Captain and Mrs. Struther, and Miss Struther : Doctor Toddy’s 
two daughters and their mamma : but where were the gentle^ 
men ? The Mulligan, great and active as he was, could not 
suffice among so many beauties. At last came a brisk neat 
little knock, and looking into the hall, I saw a gentleman 
taking off his clogs there, whilst Sir Giles Bacon’s big footman 
was looking on with rather a contemptuous air. 

“ What name shall I enounce ? ” says he, with a wink at 
Gregory on the stair. 

The gentleman in clogs said, with quiet dignity, — 

MR. FREDERICK MINCHIN. 

“Pump Court, Temple,” is printed on his cards in very 
small type : and he is a rising barrister of the Western Circuit. 
He is to be found at home of mornings : afterwards “ at West- 
minster,” as you read on his back door. “ Binks and Minchin’s 
Reports ” are probably known to my legal friends : this is the 
Minchin in question. 

He is decidedly genteel, and is rather in request at the 
balls of the Judges’ and Serjeants’ ladies: for he dances irre- 
proachably, and goes out to dinner as much as ever he can. 

He mostly dines at the Oxford and Cambridge Club, of 
which you can easily see by his appearance that he is a mem- 
ber ; he takes the joint and his half-pint of wine, for Minchin 
.does everything like a gentleman. He is rather of a literary 
turn ; still makes Latin verses with some neatness ; and before 
he was called, he was remarkably fond of the flute. 


i8 


MRS, PERKINS'S BALL. 


When Mr. Minchin goes out in the evening, his clerk brings 
his bag to the Club, to dress ; and if it is at all muddy, he 
turns up his trousers, so that he may come in without a speck. 
For such a party as this, he will have new gloves ; otherwise 
Frederick, his clerk, is chiefly employed in cleaning them with 
India-rubber. 

He has a number of pleasant stories about the Circuit and 
the University, which he tells with a simper to his neighbor at 
dinner; and has always the last joke of Mr. Baron Maule. 
He has a private fortune of five thousand pounds; he is a 
dutiful son ; he has a sister married, in Harley Street ; and 
Lady Jane Ranville has the best opinion of him, and says 
he is a most excellent and highly principled young man. 

Her ladyship and daughter arrived just as Mr. Minchin 
had popped his clogs into the umbrella-stand ; and the rank of 
that respected person, and the dignified manner in which he 
led her up stairs, caused all sneering on the part of the do* 
mestics to disappear. 


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THE BALL-ROOM DOOR, 



THE BALL-ROOM DOOR, 


A HUNDRED of knocks follow Frederick Minchin’s : in hall 
an hour Messrs. Spoff, Pinch, and Clapperton have begun their 
music, and Mulligan, with one of the Miss Bacons, is dancing 
majestically in the first quadrille. My young friends Giles and 
Tom prefer the landing-place to the drawing-rooms, where 
they stop all night, robbing the refreshment-trays as they come 
up or down. Giles has eaten fourteen ices : he will have a 
dreadful stomach-ache to-morrow. Tom has eaten twelve, but 
he has had four more glasses of negus than Giles. Grundsell, 
the occasional waiter, from whom Master Tom buys quantities 
of ginger-beer, can of course deny him nothing. That is 
Grundsell, in the tights, with the tray. Meanwhile direct your 
attention to the three gentlemen at the door : they are con- 
versing. 

ist Gent. — Who’s the man of the house — the bald man ? 

2d Gent. — Of course. The man of the house is always 
bald. He’s a stockbroker, I believe. Snooks brought me. 

\st Gent. — Have you been to the tea-room ? There’s a 
pretty girl in the tea-room : blue eyes, pink ribbons, that kind 
of thing. 

2d Gent. — Who the deuce is that girl with those tre- 
mendous shoulders ? Gad ! I do wish somebody would smack 
’em. 

Gent. — Sir — that young lady is my niece, sir, — my niece 
— my name is Blades, sir. 

2d Ge 7 it. — Well, Blades ! smack your niece’s shoulders : 
she deserves it, begad ! she does. Come in. Jinks, present me 
to the Perkinses. — Hullo ! here’s an old country acquaintance 
Lady Bacon, as I live ! with all the piglings ; she never goes 
out without the whole litter. {Exeunt i stand 2d Gents.) 

(19) 


LADY BACOJV, THE MISS BACONS, MB. FLAM. 


Lady B. — Leonora ! Maria ! Amelia ! here is the gentleman 
we met at Sir John Porkington’s. 

\The Misses Bacon, expecting to be asked to dance^ smile simultaneously ^ 
and begin to smooth their tuckers.] 

Mr. Flam. — Lady Bacon ! I couldn’t be mistaken in you } 
Won’t you dance, Lady Bacon ? 

Lady B. — Go away, you droll creature ! 

Mr. Flam. — And these are your ladyship’s seven lovely 
sisters, to judge from their likenesses to the charming Lady 
Bacon ? 

Lady B. — My sisters, he I he ! my daughters, Mr. Flam, and 
they dance, don’t you, girls ? 

The Misses Bacon. — O yes ! 

Mr. Flam. — Gad 1 how I wish I was a dancing man ! 

{Exit Flam. 


¥ 



LADY BACON, THE MISS BACONS, AND MR. FLAM. 


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MR. LARKINS. 


MR, LARKINS, 


I Have not been able to do justice (only a Lawrence could 
do that) to my respected friend Mrs. Perkins, in this picture ; 
but Larkins’s portrait is considered very like. Adolphus Lar- 
kins has been long connected with Mr. Perkins’s City establish- 
ment, and is asked to dine twice or thrice per annum. Even- 
ing-parties are the great enjoyment of this simple youth, who, 
after he has walked from Kentish Town to Thames Street, 
and passed twelve hours in severe labor there, and walked 
back again to Kentish Town, finds no greater pleasure than to 
attire his lean person in that elegant evening costume which 
you see, to walk into town again, and to dance at anybody’s 
house who will invite him. Islington, Pentonville, Somers 
Town, are the scenes of many of his exploits ; and I have seen 
this good-natured fellow performing figure dances at Notting- 
hill, at a house where I am ashamed to say there was no sup- 
per, no negus even to speak of, nothing but the bare merits of 
the polka in which Adolphus revels. To describe this gentle- 
man’s infatuation for dancing, let me say, in a word, that he 
will even frequent boarding-house hops, rather than not go. 

He has clogs, too, like Minchin : but nobody laughs at him. 
He gives himself no airs ; but walks into a house with a knock 
so tremulous and humble, that the servants rather patronize 
him. He does not speak, or have any particular opinions, but 
when the time comes, begins to dance. He bleats out a word 
or two to his partner during this operation, seems very weak 
and sad during the whole performance ; and, of course, is set to 
dance with the ugliest women everywhere. 

The gentle, kind spirit ! when I think of him night after 
night, hopping and jigging, and trudging off to Kentish Town, 
so gently, through the fogs, and mud, and darkness : I do not 
know whether I ought to admire him, because his enjoyments 
are so simple, and his dispositions so kindly ; or laugh at him, 
because he draws his life so exquisitely mild. Well, well, we 
can’t be all roaring lions in this world ; there must be some 
lambs, and harmless, kindly, gregarious creatures for eating 
and shearing. See ! even good-natured Mrs. Perkins is lead- 
ing up the trembling Larkins to the tremendous Miss Bunioa 

(21) 


MISS BUNION. 


The P.oetess, author of “ Heartstrings,” “ The Deadly 
Nightshade,” “ Passion Flowers,” &c. Though her poems 
breathe only of love. Miss B. has never been married. She is 
nearly six feet high ; she loves waltzing beyond even poesy \ 
and I think lobster-salad as much as either. She confesses to 
twenty-eight ; in which case her first volume, “ The Orphan 
of Gozo,” (cut up by Mr. Rigby, in the Quarterly., with his 
usual kindness,) must have been published when she was three 
years old. 

For a woman all soul, she certainly eats as much as any 
woman I ever saw. The sufferings she has had to endure, 
are, she says, beyond compare ; the poems which she writes 
breathe a withering passion, a smouldering despair, an agony 
of spirit that would melt the soul of a drayman, were he to read 
them. Well, it is a comfort to see that she can dance of nights, 
and to know (for the habits of illustrious literary persons are 
always worth knowing) that she eats a hot mutton-chop for 
breakfast every morning of her blighted existence. 

She lives in a boarding-house at Brompton, and comes to 
the party in a fly. 









► 


MISS BUNION 




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MR, HICKS, 


It is worth twopence to see Miss Bunion and Poseidon 
Hicks, the great poet, conversing with one another, and to talk 
of one to the other afterwards. How they hate each other ! 
I (in my wicked way) have sent Hicks almost raving mad, by 
praising Bunion to him in confidence ; and you can drive 
Bunion out of the room by a few judicious panegyrics of Plicks. 

Hicks first burst upon the astonished world with poems, in 
the Byronic manner : “ The Death-Shriek,” “ The Bastard of 
Lara,” “ The Atabal,” “ The Fire-Ship of Botzaris,” and other 
works. His “ Love Lays,” in Mr. Moore’s early style, were pro- 
nounced to be wonderful precocious for a young gentleman 
then only thirteen, and in a commercial academy, at Tooting. 

Subsequently, this great bard became less passionate and 
more thoughtful ; and, at the age of twenty, wrote “ Idiosyn- 
cracy ” (in forty books, qto.) : “ Ararat,” “ a stupendous epic,” 
as the reviews said ; and “ The Megatheria,” “ a magnificent 
contribution to our pre-Adamite literature,” according to the 
same authorities. Not having read these works, it would ill 
become me to judge them ; but I know that poor Jingle, the 
publisher, always attributed his insolvency to the latter epic, 
which was magnificently printed in elephant folio. 

Hicks has now taken a classical turn, and has brought out 
“ Poseidon,” “ lacchus,” “ Hephaestus,” and I dare say is going 
through the mythology. But I should not like to try him at a 
passage of the Greek Delectus, and more than twenty thousand 
others of us who have had a classical education.” 

Hicks was taken in an inspired attitude, regarding the 
chandelier, and pretending he didn’t know that Miss Pettifer 
was looking at him. 

Her name is Anna Maria (daughter of Higgs and Pettifer, 
solicitors, Bedford Row) ; but Hicks calls her “ lanthe ” in his 
album verses, and is himself an eminent drysalter in the City. 

(23) 


MISS MEGG07. 


Poor Miss Meggot is not so lucky as Miss Bunion. Nobody 
comes to dance with her, though she has a new frock on, as 
she calls it, and rather a pretty foot, which she always manages 
to stick out. 

She is forty-seven, the youngest of three sisters, who live in 
a mouldy old house, near Middlesex Hospital, where they have 
lived for I don’t know how many score of years ; but this is 
certain : the eldest Miss Meggot saw the Gordon Riots out of 
that same parlor window, and tells the stoiy how her father 
(physician of George III.) was robbed of his queue in the 
streets on that occasion. The two old ladies have taken the 
brevet rank, and are addressed as Mrs. Jane and Mrs. Betsy; 
one of them is at whist in the back drawing-room. But the 
youngest is still called Miss Nancy, and is considered quite a 
baby by her sisters. 

She was going to be married once to a brave young officer. 
Ensign Angus Macquirk, of the Whistlebinkie Fencibles ; but 
he fell at Quatre Bras, by the side of the gallant Snuffmull, his 
commander. Deeply, deeply did Miss Nancy deplore him. 

But time has cicatrized the wounded heart. She is gay 
now, and would sing or dance, ay, or marry if anybody asked 
her. 

Do go, my dear friend — I don’t mean to ask her to marry, 
but to ask her to dance. — Never mind the looks of the thing. 
It will make her happy ; and what does it cost you ? Ah, my 
dear fellow ! take this counsel : always dance with the old 
ladies — always dance with the governesses. It is a comfort to 
the poor things when they get up in their garret that somebody 
has had mercy on them. And such a handsome fellow as you 
too ! 


(24) 



MISS MEGGOT 





A 

i 


MISS RANVILLSy R£V( MR« TOOP^ MISS MULLINS^ AND MR. WINTER. 


MISS RANVILLE, REV. ME. TOOP, 
MISS MULLINS, MR. WINTER. 


Mr. W. — Miss Mullins, look at Miss Ranville : what n 
picture of good-humor. 

Miss M. — Oh, you satirical creature ! 

Mr. W. — Do you know why she is so angry ? she expected 
to dance with Captain Grig, and by some mistake, the Cam- 
bridge Professor got hold of her : isn’t he a handsome man ? 

Miss M. — Oh, you droll wretch ! 

Mr. IV. — Yes, he’s a fellow of college — fellows mayn’t 
marry. Miss Mullins — poor fellows, ay, Miss Mullins ? 

Miss M — La ! 

Mr. W. — And Professor of Phlebotomy in the University. 
He flatters himself he is a man of the world, Miss Mullins, 
and always dances in the long vacation. 

Miss M. — You malicious, wicked monster ! 

Mr. W. — Do you know Lady Jane Ranville ? Miss Ran' 
ville’s mamma. A ball once a year ; footmen in canary-colored 
livery : Baker Street ; six dinners in the season ; starves all 
the year round j pride and poverty, you know ; I’ve been to 
her ball once. ' Ranville Ranville’s her brother ; and between 
you and me — but this, dear Miss Mullins, is a profound secret, 
— I think he’s a greater fool than his sister. 

Miss M. — Oh, you satirical, droll, malicious, wicked thing 
you ! 

Mr. W. — You do me injustice, Miss Mullins, indeed 
you do. 

[Chaine AnglaisE\ 
(as) 


MISS yOY, MR, AND MRS. MR. B OTTER. 


Mr. B . — What spirits that girl has, Mr. Joy? 

Mr. y. — She’s a sunshine in a house, Botter, a regular 
sunshine. When Mrs. J. here’s in a bad humor, i * * * 

Mrs. y. — Don’t talk nonsense, Mr. Joy. 

Mr. B. — There’s a hop, skip, and jump for you ! Why, it 
beats Ellsler ! Upon my conscience it does ! It’s her four- 
teenth quadrille too. There she goes ! She’s a jewel of a girl, 
though I say it that shouldn’t. 

M^rs. y. {laughing — Why don’t you marry her, Botter ? 
Shall I speak to her? I dare say she’d have you. You’re not 
so very old. 

Mr. B. — Don’t aggravate me, Mrs. J. You know when I 
lost my heart in the year 1817, at the opening of Waterloo 
Bridge, to a young lady who wouldn’t have me, and left me to 
die in despair, and married Joy, of the Stock Exchange. 

Mrs. y — Get away, you foolish old creature. 

[Mn. 'io\ looks on in ecstasies at Miss Joy’s agility. Lady Jane Ranvillb, 
Bamr Street, pronowtces her to be an exceedingly forward person. Captain 
Dobbs likes a girl who has plenty of go in her ; arid as for Fred Sparks, he it 
over head and ears in love with her.^ 



MISS JOY, MR. AND MRS. JOY, MR. BOTTEFl 





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MR. RANVILLE RANVILLE AND JACK HUBBARD 


MR, RANVILLE RANVILLE AND 
JACK HUBBARD, 


This is Miss Ranville Ranville’s brother, Mr. Ranville Ran- 
ville, of the Foreign Office, faithfully designed as he was play- 
ing at whist in the card-room. Talleyrand used to play at whist 
at the “ Travellers’,’’ that is why Ranville Ranville indulges in 
that diplomatic recreation. It is not his fault if he be not the 
greatest man in the room. 

If you speak to him, he smiles sternly, and answers in mon- 
osyllables ; he would rather die than commit himself. He 
never has committed himself in his life. He was the first at 
school, and distinguished at Oxford. He is growing prema- 
turely bald now, like Canning, and is quite proud of it. He 
rides in St. James Park of a morning before breakfast. He 
dockets his tailor’s bills, and nicks off his dinner.-notes in dip- 
lomatic paragraphs, and keeps precis of them all. If he ever 
makes a joke, it is a quotation from Horace, like Sir Robert 
Peel. The only relaxation he permits himself, is to read 
Thucydides in the holidays. 

Everybody asks him out to dinner, on account of his brass 
buttons with the Queen’s cipher, and to have the air of being 
well with the Foreign Office. “ Where I dine,” he says sol- 
emnly, “ I think it is my duty to go to evening-parties.” That 
is why he is here. He never dances, never sups, never drinks. 
He has gruel when he goes home to bed. I think it is in his 
brains. 

He is such an ass and so respectable, that one wonders he 
has not succeeded in the world j and yet somehow they laugh 
at him ; and you and I shall be Ministers as soon as he will. 

Yonder, making believe to look over the print-books, is that 
merry rogue, J ack Hubbard. 

See how jovial he looks ! He is the life and soul of every 
party, and his impromptu singing after supper will make you 
die of laughing. He is meditating an impromptu now, and at 
the same time thinking about a bill that is coming due next 
Thursday. Happy dog ! 

(27) 


MRS. TROTTER, MISS TROTTER, MISS 
TOADY, LORD METHUSELAH, 


Dear Emma Trotter has been silent and rather ill-humored 
all the evening until now her pretty face lights up with smiles. 
Cannot you guess why? Pity the simple and affectionate 
creature ! Lord Methuselah has not arrived until this moment : 
and see how the artless girl steps forward to greet him ! 

In the midst of all the selfishness and turmoil of the world, 
how charming it is to find virgin hearts quite unsullied, and to 
look on at little romantic pictures of mutual love I Lord Me- 
thuselah, though you know his age by the peerage — though he 
is old, wigged, gouty, rouged, wicked, has lighted up a pure 
flame in that gentle bosom. There was a talk about Tom Wil- 
loughby last year \ and then, for a time, young Hawbuck (Sir 
John Hawbuck’s youngest son) seemed the favored man ; but 
Emma never knew her mind until she met the dear creature 
before you in a Rhine steamboat. “Why are you so late, 
Edward ? ” says she. Dear artless child ! 

Her mother looks on with tender satisfaction. One can 
appreciate the joys of such an admirable parent ! 

“Look at them ! ” says Miss Toady. “ I vow and protest 
they’re the handsomest couple in the room ! ” 

Methuselah’s grandchildren are rather jealous and angry, 
and Mademoiselle Ariane, of the French theatre, is furious. 
But there’s no accounting for the mercenary envy of some 
people ; and it is impossible to satisfy everybody. 







MRS. TROITER, MISS TROTTER, MISS TOADY, LORD METHUSELAH- 






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MR. BEAUMORIS, MR. GRIG, MR. FLINDERS,. 



MR, BRA C/MORIS, MR. GRIG, MR. FLYNDERS, 


Those three young men are described in a twinkling: Cap* 
tain Grig of the Heavies ; Mr. Beaumoris, the handsome young 
man ; Tom Flinders (Flynders Flynders he now calls himself), 
the fat gentleman who dresses after Beaumoris. 

Beaumoris is in the Treasury : he has a salary of eighty 
pounds a year, on which he maintains the best cab and horses 
of the season ; and out of which he pays seventy guineas merely 
for his subscriptions to clubs. He hunts in Leicestershire, 
where great men mount him ; he is a prodigious favorite behind 
the scenes at the theatres ; you may get glimpses of him at 
Richmond, with all sorts of pink bonnets ; and he is the sworn 
friend of half the most famous roues about town, such as Old 
Methuselah, Lord Billygoat, Lord Tarquin, and the rest : a re- 
spectable race. It is to oblige the former that the good-natured 
young fellow is here to-night ; though it must not be imagined 
that he gives himself any airs of superiority. Dandy as he is, 
he is quite affable, and would borrow ten guineas from any man 
in the room, in the most jovial way possible. 

It is neither Beau’s birth, which is doubtful ; nor his money, 
which is entirely negative ; nor his honesty, which goes along 
with his money-qualification ; nor his wit, for he can barely 
spell, — which recommend him to the fashionable world : but a 
sort of Grand Seigneur splendor and dandified je ne sais 
quoi, which make the man he is of him. The way in which his 
boots and gloves fit him is a wonder which no other man can 
achieve ; and though he has not an atom of principle, it must 
be confessed that he invented the Taglioni shirt. 

When I see these magnificent dandies yawning out of 
‘‘ White’s,” or caracoling in the Park on shining charges, I like 
to think that Brummell was the greatest of them all, and that 
Brummell’s father was a footman. 

Flynders is Beaumoris’s toady : lends him money : buys 

3 ^" 9 ) 


30 


MRS. PERKINS'S BALL. 


horses through his recommendation ; dresses after him : clings 
to him in I’all Mall, and on the steps of the club j and talks 
about ‘Bo * in all societies. It is his drag which carries down 
Bo’s friends to the Derby, and his check pays for dinners to 
the pink bonnets. I don’t believe the Perkinses know what a 
rogue he is, but fancy him a decent, reputable City man, like his 
father before him. 

As for Captain Grig, what is there to tell about him ? He 
performs the duties of his calling with perfect gravity. He is 
faultless on parade ; excellent across country ; amiable when 
drunk, rather slow when sober. He has not two ideas, and 
is a most good-natured, irreproachable, gallant, and stupid 
young officer. 













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CAVALIER SEUL. 



CAVALIER SEUL, 


This is my friend Bob Hely, performing the Cavalier seiil 
in a quadrille. Remark the good-humored pleasure depicted 
in his countenance. Has he any secret grief ? Has he a pain 
anywhere? No, dear Miss Jones, he is dancing like a true 
Briton, and with all the charming gayety and abandon of our 
race. 

When Canaillard performs that Cavalier seul operation, 
does he flinch ? No ; he puts on his most vainqueur look, he 
sticks his thumbs into the armholes of his waistcoat, and ad- 
vances, retreats, pirouettes, and otherwise gambadoes, as though 
to say, “ Regarde moi, O monde ! Venez, O femmes, venez voir 
danser Canaillard ! ” 

When De Bobwitz executes the same measure, he does it 
with smiling agility, and graceful ease. 

But poor Hely, if he were advancing to a dentist, his face 
would not be more cheerful. All the eyes of the room are 
upon him, he thinks ; and he thinks he looks like a fool. 

Upon my word, if you press the point with me, dear Miss 
Jones, I think he is not very far from right. I think that w>dle 
Frenchman and Germans may dance, as it is their nature to do, 
there is a natural dignity about us Britons, which debars us 
from that enjoyment. I am rather of the Turkish opinion, that 
this should be done for us. I think * * * 

“ Good-by, you envious old fox-and-the-grapes,’’ says Miss 
Jones, and the next moment I see her whirling by in a polka 
with Tom Tozer, at a pace which makes me shrink back with 
terror into the little boudoir. 

<3i) 


M. CANAILLARD, CHEVALIER OF THE, 
LEGION OF HONOR. 

LIEUTENANT BARON BE BOB WITZ. 

Canaillard. — Oh, ces Anglais ! quels hommes, mon Dieu I 
Comme ils sont habilles, comme ils dansent ! 

Bobwitz. — Ce sont de beaux hommes bourtant ; point de 
tenue militaire, mais de grands gaillards ; si je les avais dans 
ma compagnie de la Garde, j’en ferai de bons soldats. 

Canadlard. — Est-il b^te, cet Allemand ! Les grands hommes 
ne font pas toujours de bons soldats, Monsieur. II me semble 
que les soldats de France qui sont de ma taille, Monsieur, 
valent un peu mieux * * 

Bobwitz. — ^Vous croyez? 

Canaillard. — Comment I je le crois, Monsieur ? J’en suis 
sur ! II me semble. Monsieur, que nous Tavons prouvd. 

Bobwitz {impatiently). — ^Je m’en vais danser la Bolka, Ser- 
VitCur, Monsieur. 

Canaillard. — Butor I (He goes and looks at himself in the 
glass, when he is seized by Mrs. Perkins for the Polka.) 

(33> 



M. CANAILLARD, LIEUTENANT BARON DE BOB WITZ. 




m-'- 










77//t fiOfJDOJK. 

vfh SM/TB MR BROWN MISS BUSTLETON. 


M* Brown . — y ou polk. Miss Bustleton ? I’m so delaighted 
Mis* Bu^tletou — \StnU€i ana prepares to rise^ 

— L/— — puppy. 

{J^oor Smith don't po/k,) 

3 * 


GRAND POLKA, 


Though a quadrille seems to me as dreary as a funeral, yet 
to look at a polka, I own, is pleasant. See ! Brown and Emily 
Bustleton are whirling round as light as two pigeons over a 
dovecot; Tozer, with that wicked whisking little Jones, spins 
along as merrily as a May-day sweep ; Miss Joy is the partner 
of the happy Fred Sparks; and even Miss Ranville is pleased, 
for the faultless Captain Grig is toe and heel with her. Beau- 
moris, with rather a nonchalant air, takes a turn with Miss 
Trotter, at which Lord Methuselah’s wrinkled chops quiver un- 
easily. See ! how the big Baron de Bobwitz spins lightly, and 
gravely, and gracefully round ; and lo ! the Frenchman stagger- 
ing under the weight of Miss Bunion, who tramps and kicks 
like a young cart-horse. 

But the most awful sight which met my view in this dance 
was the unfortunate Miss Little, to whom fate had assigned 
The Mulligan as a partner. Like a pavid kid in the talons 
of an eagle, that young creature trembled in his huge Milesian 
grasp. Disdaining the recognized form of the dance, the Irish 
chieftain accommodated the music to the dance of his own 
green land, and performed a double shuffle jig, carrying Miss 
Little along with him. Miss Ranville and her Captain shrank 
back amazed ; Miss Trotter skirried out of his way into the 
protection of the astonished Lord Methuselah ; Fred Sparks 
could hardly move for laughing ; while, on the contrary. Miss 
Joy was quite in pain for poor Sophy Little. As Canaillard 
and the Poetess came up. The Mulligan, in the height of his 
enthusiasm, lunged out a kick which sent Miss Bunion howl- 
ing ; and concluded with a tremendous Hurroo ! — a war-cry 
which caused every Saxon heart to shudder and quail. 

“ Oh that the earth would open and kindly take me in I ” I 
exclaimed mentally ; and slunk off into the lower regions, where 
by this time half the company were at supper. 

(34) 


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■^HE BOUDOIR — MR. SMITH, MR. BROWN, MISS BUSTLETON- 


THE SUPPER, 


The supper is going on behind the screen. There is no 
need to draw the supper. We all know that sort of transaction : 
the squabbling, and gobbling, and popping of champagne ; the 
smell of musk and lobster-salad ; the dowagers chumping away 
at plates of raised pie : the young lassies nibbling at little tit- 
bits, which the dexterous young gentlemen procure. Three 
large men, like doctors of divinity, wait behind the table, and 
furnish everything that appetite can ask for. I never, for my 
part, can eat any supper for wondering at those men. I believe 
if you were to ask them for mashed turnips, or a slice of croco- 
dile, those astonishing people would serve you. What a con- 
tempt they must have for the guttling crowd to whom they 
minister — those solemn pastry-cook’s men ! How they must 
hate jellies, and game-pies and champagne, in their hearts ! 
How they must scorn my poor friend Grundsell behind the 
.screen, who is sucking at a bottle ! 


GEORGE GRUNDSELL, 

GREEN-GROCER AND SALESMAN, 

9 LITTLE POCKLINGTON BUILDINGS, 

Late Confidential Servant m the Family of 
THE LORD MAYOR OF LONDON. 

|^P*Carpets Beat. — Knives and Boots cleaned per contract. — Errands faithfully 
performed. — G. G. attends Ball and Dinner parties, and from his knowledge 
of the most distinguished Families in London, confidently recommends his 
services to the distinguished neighborhood of Pocklington Square. 


This disguised green-grocer is a very well-known character 
in the neighborhood of Pocklington Square. He waits at the 

( 35 ) 


MRS. PERKINS'S BALL. 


36 

parties of the gentry in the neighborhood, and though, of 
course, despised in families where a footman is kept, is a person 
of much importance in female establishments. 

Miss Jonas always employs him at her parties, and says to 
her page, “Vincent, send the butler, or send Desborough to 
me ; ” by which name she chooses to designate G. G, 

When the Miss Frumps have post-horses to their carriage, 
and pay visits, Grundsell always goes behind. Those ladies 
have the greatest confidence in him, have been godmothers to 
fourteen of his children, and leave their house in his charge 
when they go to Bognor for the summer. He attended those 
ladies when they were presented at the last drawing-room of 
her Majesty Queen Charlotte. 

Mr. GrundselFs state costume is a blue coat and copper 
buttons, a white waistcoat, and an immense frill and shirt-collar. 
He was for many years a private watchman, and once can- 
vassed for the office of parish clerk of St. Peter’s, PockSmgton. 
He can be intrusted with untold spoons ; with anything, in fact, 
but liquor ; and it was he who brought round the cards iot 
Mrs. Perkins’s Balu 






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0 



GEORGE GRUNDSELL 


AFTER SUFFER, 


I DO not intend to say any more about it. After the people 
had supped, they went back and danced. Some supped again. 
I gave Miss Bunion, with my own hands, four bumpers of 
champagne : and such a quantity of goose-liver and truffles, 
that I don’t wonder she took a glass of cherry-brandy after- 
wards. The gray morning was in Pocklington Square as she 
drove away in her fly. So did the other people go away. How 
green and sallow some of the girls looked, and how awfully 
clear Mrs. Colonel Bludyer’s rouge was ! Lady Jane Ranville’s 
great coach had roared away down the streets long before. 
Fred Minchin pattered off in his clogs : it was I who covered 
up Miss Meggot, and conducted her, with her two old sisters, to 
the carriage. Good old souls ! They have shown their grati- 
tude by asking me to tea next Tuesday. Methuselah is gone 
to finish the night at the Club. “Mind to-morrow,” Miss 
Trotter says, kissing her hand out of the carriage. -Canaillard 
departs, asking the way to “Lesterre Squar.” They all go 
away — life goes away. 

Look at Miss Martin and young Ward ! How tenderly the 
rogue is wrapping her up ! how kindly she looks at him ! The 
old folks are whispering behind as they wait for their carriage. 
What is their talk, think you ? and when shall that pair make 
a match ? When you see those pretty little creatures with their 
smiles and their blushes, and their pretty ways, would you like 
to be the Grand Bashaw ? 

“ Mind and send me a large piece of cake,” I go up and 
whisper archly to old Mr. Ward : and we look on rather senti- 
mentally at the couple, almost the last in the rooms (there, I 
declare, go the musicians, and the clock is at five) — when 
Grundsell, with an air effare^ rushes up to me and says, “ For 
^eV’n sake, sir, go into the supper-room : there’s that Hirisli 
gent a-pitchiffl into Mr. P.’' 


(37) 


THE MULLIGAN AND MR, FERKLNS. 


It was too true. I had taken him away after supper (he ran 
after Miss Little’s carriage, who was dying in love with him as 
he fancied), but the brute had come back again. The doctors 
of divinity were putting up their condiments : everybody was 
gone ; but the abominable Mulligan sat swinging his legs at the 
lonely supper-table ! 

Perkins was opposite, gasping at him. 

The Mulligan. — I tell ye, ye are the butler, ye big fat man. 
Go get me some more champagne ; it’s good at this house. 

Mr, Perkins (jvith dignity). — It is good at this house ; 
but 

The Mulligan. — But hwhat, ye goggling, bow-windowed 
jackass ? Go get the wine, and we’ll dthrink it together, my 
old buck. 

Mr, Perkins. — My name, sir, is Perkins. 

The Mulligan. — Well, that rhymes with jerkins, my man of 
firkins ; so don’t let us have any more shirkings and lurkings, 
Mr. Perkins. 

Mr. Perkins {with apoplectic energy). — Sir, I am the master 
of this house ; and I order you to quit it. I’ll not be insulted, 
sir. I’ll send for a policeman, sir. What do you mean, Mr. 
Titmarsh, sir, by bringing this — this beast into my house, sir? 

At this, with a scream like that of a Hyrcanian tiger, Mulli- 
gan of the hundred battles sprang forward at his prey ; but we 
were beforehand with him. Mr. Gregory, Mr. Grundsell, Sir 
Giles Bacon’s large man, the young gentlemen, and myself, 
rushed simultaneously upon the tipsy chieftain, and confined 
him. The doctors of divinity looked on with perfect indiffer- 
ence. That Mr. Perkins did not go off in a fit is a wonder. 
He was led away heaving and snorting frightfully. 

Somebody smashed Mulligan’s hat over his eyes, and I led 
him forth into the silent morning. The chirrup of the birds, 
the freshness of the rosy air, and a penn’orth of coffee that I 
got for him at a stall in the Regent Circus, revived him some- 

(38) 


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MISS MARTIN AND YOUNG WAREl 


MRS. PERKINS'S BALL. 


39 


what. When I quitted him, he was not angry but sad. He 
was desirous, it is true, of avenging the wrongs of Erin in 
battle line ; he wished also to share the grave of Sarsfield and 
Hugh O’Neill ; but he was sure that Miss Perkins, as well as 
Miss Little, was desperately in love with him ; and I left him 
on a doorstep in tears. 

Is it best to be laughing-mad, or crying-mad, in the world ? * 
says I moodily, coming into my street. Betsy the maid was 
already up and at work, on her knees, scouring the steps, and 
cheerfully beginning her honest daily labor. 


THK OF MRS. PERKINSES BALL. 





THE MULLIGAN AND MR. PERKINS 





OUR STREET 


Our Street, from the little nook which I occupy in it, and 
whence I and a fellow-lodger and friend of mine cynically ob- 
serve it, presents a strange motley scene. We are in a state of 
transition. We are not as yet in the town, and we have left the 
country, where we were when I came to lodge with Mrs. 
Cammysole, my excellent landlady. I then took second-floor 
apartments at No. 17 Waddilove Street, and since, although I 
have never moved (having various little comforts about me), I 
find myself living at No. 46 a Pocklington Gardens. 

Why is this ? Why am I to pay eighteen shillings instead 
of fifteen ? I was quite as happy in Waddilove Street ; but the 
fact is, a great portion of that venerable old district has passed 
away, and we are being absorbed into the splendid new white- 
stuccoed Doric porticoed genteel Pocklington quarter. Sir 
Thomas Gibbs Pocklington, M. P. for the borough of Lathan- 
plaster, is the founder of the district and his own fortune. The 
Pocklington Estate Office is in the Square, on a line with Wad- 
dil — with Pocklington Gardens I mean. The old inn, the 
“ Ram and Magpie,’* where the market-gardeners used to bait, 
came out this year with a new white face and title, the shield, 
&c., of the Pocklington Arms.” Such a shield it is ! Such 
quarterings ! Howard, Cavendish, DeRos, De la Zouche, all 
mingled together. 

Even our house, 46A, which Mrs. Cammysole has had 
painted white in compliment to the Gardens of which it now 
forms part, is a sort of impostor, and has no business to be 
called Gardens at all. Mr. Gibbs, Sir Thomas’s agent and 
nephew is furious at our daring to take the title which belongs 

A (43) 


44 


OV'R STREET, 


to our betters. The very next door (No. 46, the Honorable 
Mrs. Mountnoddy,) is a house of five storeys, shooting up 
proudly into the air, thirty feet above our old high-roofed low- 
roomed old tenement. Our house belongs to Captain Bragg, 
not only the landlord but the son-in-law of Mrs. Cammysole, 
who lives a couple of hundred yards down the street, at “ The 
Bungalow.” He was the commander of the “ Ram Chunder ” 
East Indiaman, and has quarrelled with the Pocklingtons ever 
since he bought houses in the parish. 

He it is who will not sell or alter his houses to suit the 
spirit of the times. He it is who, though he made the widow 
Cammysole change the name of her street, will not pull down 
the house next door, nor the baker’s next, nor the iron-bedstead 
and feather warehouse ensuing, nor the little barber’s with the 
pole, nor, I am ashamed to say, the tripe-shop, still standing. 
The barber powders the heads of the great footmen from Pock- 
lington Gardens ; they are so big that they can scarcely sit in 
his little premises. And the old tavern, the East Indiaman,” 
is kept by Bragg’s ship-steward, and protests against the 
Pocklington Arms.” 

Down the road is Pocklington Chapel, Rev. Oldham Slocum 
— in brick, with arched windows and a wooden belfry : sober, 
dingy, and hideous. In the centre of Pocklington Gardens 
rises St. Waltheof’s, the Rev. Cyril Thuryfer and assistants — 
a splendid Anglo-Norman edifice, vast, rich, elaborate, bran 
new, and intensely old. Down Avemary Lane you may hear the 
clink of the little Romish chapel bell. And hard by is a large 
broad-shouldered Ebenezer (Rev. Jonas Gronow), out of the 
windows of which the hymns come booming all Sunday long. 

Going westward along the line, we come presently to Com- 
andine House (on a part of the gardens of which Comandine 
Gardens is about to be erected by his lordship) ; farther on. 
The Pineries,” Mr. and Lady Mary Mango : and so we get 
into the country, and out of Our Street altogether, as I may 
say. But in the half mile, over which it may be said to extend, 
we find all sorts and conditions of people — from the Right 
Honorable Lord Comandine down to the present topographer j 
who being of no rank as it were, has the fortune to be treated 
on almost friendly footing by all, from his lordship down to the 
tradesman. 


STREET. 


OUR 





By Mr. M. A. TITMARSH 











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A STREET COURTSHIP. 

Baker . — How them curl-papers do become you, Miss Molly 
Miss Molly . — Get ’long now, Baker, do. 



f 


OUR HOUSE IN OUR STREET, 


We must begin our little descriptions where they say charity 
should begin — at home. Mrs. Cammysole, my landlady, will 
be rather surprised when she reads this, and finds that a good- 
natured tenant, who has never complained of her impositions 
for fifteen years, understands every one of her tricks, and 
treats them, not with anger, but with scorn — with silent scorn. 

On the i8th of December, 1837, for instance, coming gently 
down stairs, and before my usual wont, I saw you seated in my 
arm-chair, peeping into a letter that came from my aunt in the 
country, just as if it had been addressed to you, and not to 
“ M. A. Titmarsh, Esq.” Did I make any disturbance ? far 
from it ; I slunk back to my bedroom, (being enabled to walk 
silently in the beautiful pair of worsted slippers Miss Penelope 

J s worked for me : they are worn out now, dear Penelope !) 

and then rattling open the door with a great noise, descended 
the stairs, singing “ Son vergin vezzosa ” at the top of my voice. 
You were not in my sitting-room, Mrs. Cammysole, when I 
entered that apartment. 

You have been reading all my letters, papers, manuscripts, 
hrouillons oi verses, inchoate articles for the Morning Rost and 
Morning Chronicle^ invitations to dinner and tea — all my family 
letters, all Eliza Townley’s letters, from the first, in which she 
declared that to be the bride of her beloved Michelagnolo was 
the fondest wash of her maiden heart, to the last, in which she 
announced that her Thomas was the best of husbands, and 
signed herself “ Eliza Slogger; ” all Mary Farmer’s letters, all 
Emily Delamere’s ; all that poor foolish old Miss MacWhirter’s, 

whom I w^ould as soon marry as : in a word, I know that 

you, you hawk-beaked, keen-eyed, sleepless, indefatigable old 
Mrs. Cammysole, have read all my papers for these fifteen 
years. f 

I know that you cast your curious old eyes over all the 
manuscripts which you find in my coat-pockets and those of 
my pantaloons, as they hang in a drapery over the door-handle 
of my bedroom. 

I know that you count the money in my green and gold 
A (45) 


OUR STREET. 


46 

purse, which Lucy Netterville gave me, and speculate on the 
manner in which I have laid out the difference between to-day 
and yesterday. 

I know that you have an understanding with the laundress 
(to whom you say that you are all-powerful with me), threaten- 
ing to take away my practice from her, unless she gets up 
gratis some of your fine linen. 

I know that we both have a pennyworth of cream for break- 
fast, which is brought in in the same little can ; and I know 
who has the most for her share. 

I know how many lumps of sugar you take from each pound 
as it arrives. I have counted the lumps, you old thief, and for 
years have never said a word, except to Miss Clapperclaw, the 
first-floor lodger. Once I put a bottle of pale brandy into that 
cupboard, of which you and I only have keys, and the liquor 
wasted and wasted away until it was all gone. You drank the 
whole of it, you wicked old woman. You a lady, indeed ! 

I know your rage when they did me the honor to elect me a 
member of the “ Poluphloisboiothalasses Club,’^ and 1 ceased 
consequently to dine at home. When I did dine at home, — on 
a beefsteak let us say, — I should like to know what you had 
for supper. You first amputated portions of the meat when 
raw ; you abstracted more when cooked. Do you think / was 
taken in by your flimsy pretences ? I wonder how you could 
dare to do such things before your maids (you a clergyman’s 
daughter and widow, indeed !), whom you yourself were always 
charging with roguery. 

Yes, the insolence of the old woman is unbearable, and I 
must break out at last. If she goes off in a fit at reading this, 
I am sure I sha’n’t mind. She has two unhappy wenches, 
against whom her old tongue is clacking from morning till 
night: she pounces on them at all hours. It was but this 
morning at eight, when poor Molly was brooming the steps, 
and the baker paying her by no means unmerited compliments, 
that my landlady came whirling out of the ground-floor front, 
and sent the poor girl whimpering into the kitchen. 

Were it but for her conduct to her maids I was determined 
publicly to denounce her. These poor wretches she causes to 
lead the liveslof demons ; and not content with bullying them 
all day, she sleeps at night in the same room with them, so 
that she may have them up before daybreak, and scold them 
while they are dressing. 

Certain it is, that between her and Miss Clapperclaw, on 
the first floor, the poor wenches lead a dismal life. My dear 



captain and MRS. 


BRAGG OF OUR STREET. 

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OUR STREET, 


47 


Miss Clapperclaw, I hope you will excuse me for having placed 
you in the title-page of my little book, looking out of your 
accustomed window, and having your eye-glasses ready to spy 
the whole street, which you know better than any inhabitant 
of it. 

It is to you that I owe most of my knowledge of our neigh- 
bors ; from you it is that most of the facts and observations 
contained in these brief pages are taken. Many a night, ovei 
our tea, have we talked amiably about our neighbors and their 
little failings ; and as I know that you speak of mine pretty 
freely, why, let me say, my dear Bessy, that if we have not 
built up Our Street between us, at least we have pulled it to 
pieces. 


THE BUNGALOW-^CAPTAIH AND MRS. BRAGG. 


Long, long ago, when Our Street was the country — a stage- 
coach between us and London passing four times a day — I do 
not care to own that it was a sight of Flora Cammysole’s face, 
under the card of her mamma’s “Lodgings to Let,” which first 
caused me to become a tenant of Our Street. A fine good- 
humored lass she was then ; and I gave her lessons (part out 
of the rent) in French and flower-painting. She has made a 
fine rich marriage since, although her eyes have often seemed 
to me to say, “Ah, Mr. T., why didn’t you, when there was 
yet time, and we both of us were free, propose — ^you know 
what ? ” “ Psha ! Where was the money, my dear madam ? ” 

Captain Bragg, then occupied in building Bungalow Lodge 
— Bragg, I say, living on the first floor, and entertaining sea- 
captains, merchants, and East Indian friends with his grand 
ship’s plate, being disappointed in a project of marrying a di- 
rector’s daughter, who was also a second cousin once removed 
of a peer, — sent in a fury for Mrs. Cammysole, his landlady, 
and proposed to marry Flora off-hand, and settle four hundred 
a year upon her. Flora was ordered from the back parlor (the 
ground-floor occupies the second-floor bedroom), and was on 
the spot made acquainted with the splendid offer which the 
the first-floor had made her. She has been Mrs. Captain Bragg 
these twelve years. 

You see her portrait, and that of the brute her husband, on 
the opposite side of the page. 

Bragg to this day wears anchor-buttons, and has a dress- 
coat with a gold strap for epaulets, in case he should have a 
fancy to sport them. His house is covered witli portraits, 
busts, and miniatures of himself. His wife is made to wear 
one of the latter. On his sideboard are pieces of plate, pre- 
sented by the passengers of the “ Ram Chunder ” to Captain 
Bragg: “The ‘Ram Chunder’ East Indiaman, in a gale, off 
Table Bay ; ” “ The Outward-bound Fleet, under convoy of 
her Majesty’s frigate ‘ Loblollyboy,’ Captain Gutch, beating off 
the French squadron, under Commodore Leloup (the ‘ Ram 
Chunder,’ S.E. by E., is represented engaged with the ‘ Mirliton ’ 
corvette) ; “ The ‘ Ram Chunder ’ standing into the Hooghly, 

with Captain Bragg, his telescope and speaking-trumpet, on 
the poop ; ” “ Captain Bragg presenting the Officers of the 
‘ Ram Chunder ’ to General Bonaparte at St. Helena — Tit- 
MARjsH ” (this fine piece was painted by me when I w«s in favor 



A STUDIO IN OUR STREET. 




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OUR STREET, 


49 

with Bragg) \ in a word, Bragg and the “ Ram Chunder ” are 
all over the house. 

Although I have eaten scores of dinners at Captain Bragg’s 
charge, yet his hospitality is so insolent, that none of us who 
frequent his mahogany feel any obligation to our braggart en- 
tertainer. 

After he has given one of his great heavy dinners he always 
takes an opportunity to tell you, in the most public way, how 
many bottles of wine were drunk. His pleasure is to make 
his guests tipsy, and to tell everybody how and when the period 
of inebriation arose. And Miss Clapperclaw tells me that he 
often comes over laughing and giggling to her, and pretending 
that he has brought me into this condition — a calumny which 
I fling contemptuously in his face. 

He scarcely gives any but men’s parties, and invites the 
whole club home to dinner. What is the compliment of being 
asked, when the whole club is asked too, I should like to know ? 
Men’s parties are only good for boys. I hate a dinner where 
there are no women, Bragg sits at the head of his table, and 
bullies the solitary Mrs. Bragg. 

He entertains us with stories of storms which he, Bragg, en- 
countered — of dinners which he, Bragg, has received from the 
Governor-General of India — of jokes which he, Bragg, has 
heard ; and however stale or odious they may be, poor Mrs. B. 
is always expected to laugh. 

Woe be to her if she doesn’t, or if she laughs at anybody 
else’s jokes. I have seen Bragg go up to her and squeeze her 
arm with a savage grind of his teeth, and say, with an oath. 
Hang it, madam, how dare you laugh when any man but your 
husband speaks to you ? I forbid you to grin in that way, I 
forbid you to look sulky. I forbid you to look happy, or to 
look up, or to keep your eyes down to the ground. I desire 
you will not be trapezing through the rooms. I order you not 
to sit as still as a stone.” He curses her if the wine is corked, 
or if the dinner is spoiled, or if she comes a minute too soon tc 
the club for him, or arrives a minute too late. He forbids her 
to walk, except upon his arm. And the consequence of his ill- 
treatment is, that Mrs. Cammysole and Mrs. Bragg respect him 
beyond measure, and think him the first of human beings. 

“ I never knew a woman who was constantly bullied by her 
husband who did not like him the better for it,” Miss Clapper- 
claw says. And though this speech has some of Clapp’s usual 
sardonic humor in it, I can’t but think there is some truth in 
the remark. 


LE VANT HO USE CHAMBERS, 

ME. RUMBOLD, A, R, A,, AND MISS RUMBOLD, 


When Lord Levant quitted the country and this neighbor* 
hood, in which the tradesmen still deplore him, No. 56, known 
as Levantine House, was let to the “ Pococurante Club,’’ which 
was speedily bankrupt (for we are too far from the centre of 
town to support a club of our own) ; it was subsequently hired 
by the West Diddlesex Railroad ; and is now divided into sets 
of chambers, superintended by an acrimonious housekeeper, 
and by a porter in a sham livery : whom, if you don’t find him 
at the door, you may as well seek at the “ Grapes ” public- 
house, in the little lane round the corner. He varnishes the 
japan-boots of the dandy lodgers ; reads Mr. Pinkney’s Morn- 
ing Post before he lets him have it ; and neglects the letters of 
the inmates of the chambers generally. 

The great rooms, which were occupied as the salons of the 
noble Levant, the coffee-rooms of the “ Pococurante ” (a club 
where the play was furious, as I am told), and the board room 
and manager’s room of the West Diddlesex, are tenanted now 
Ly a couple of artists : young Pinkney the miniaturist, and 
George Rumbold the historical painter. Miss Rumbold, his 
sister, lives with him, by the way ; but with that young lady of 
course we have nothing to do. 

I knew both these gentlemen at Rome, where George wore 
a velvet doublet and a beard down to his chest, and used to 
talk about high art at the Cafe Greco.” How it smelled of 
smoke, that velveteen doublet of his, with which his stringy 
red beard was likewise perfumed ! It was in his studio that I 
had the honor to be introduced to his sister, the fair Miss 
Clara : she had a large casque with a red horse-hair plume (I 
thought it had been a wisp of her brothers’s beard at first), 
and held a tin-headed spear in her hand, representing a Roman 
warrior in the great picture of “ Caractacus ” George was 
painting — a piece sixty-four feet by eighteen. The Roman 
warrior blushed to be discovered in that attitude : the tin- 
headed spear trembled in the whitest arm in the world. So 
she put it down, and taking off the helmet also, went and sat 


OUR STREET. 


51 

in a far corner of the studio, mending George’s stockings { 
whilst we smoked a couple of pipes, and talked about Raphael 
being a good deal overrated. 

I think he is ; and have never disguised my opinion about 
the “Transfiguration.” And all the time we talked, there were 
Clara’s eyes looking lucidly out from the dark corner in which 
she was sitting, working away at the stockings. The lucky 
fellow 1 They were in a dreadful state of bad repair when she 
came out to him at Rome, after the death of their father, the 
Reverend Miles Rumbold. 

George, while at Rome, painted “ Caractacus ; ” a picture 
of “ Non Angli sed Angeli ” of course ; a picture of “Alfred in 
the Neatherd’s Cottage,” seventy-two feet by forty-eight (an idea 
of the gigantic size and Michel-Angelesque proportions of this 
picture may be formed, when I state that the mere muffin, of 
which the outcast king is spoiling the baking, is two feet three 
in diameter) ; and the deaths of Socrates, of Remus, and of the 
Christians under Nero respectively. I shall never forget how 
lovely Clara looked in white muslin, with her hair down, in this 
latter picture, giving herself up to a ferocious Carnifex (for 
which Bob Gaunter the architect sat), and refusing to listen to 
the mild suggestions of an insinuating Flamen : which character 
W'as a gross caricature of myself. 

None of George’s pictures sold. He has enough to tapestry 
Trafalgar Square. He has painted, since he came back to 
England, “ The Flaying of Marsyas,” “ The Smothering of the 
Little Boys in the Tower,^’ “ A Plague Scene during the Great 
Pestilence,” “ Ugolino on the Seventh Day after he was de^ 
prived of Victuals,” &c. For although these pictures have 
great merit, and the writhings of Marsyas, the convulsions of 
the little prince, the look of agony of St. Lawrence on the grid- 
iron, &c., are quite true to nature, yet the subjects somehow 
are not agreeable ; and if he hadn’t a small patrimony, my 
friend George would starve. 

Fondness for art leads me a great deal to his studio. George 
is a gentleman, and has very good friends, and good pluck too. 
When we were at Rome, there was a great row between him and 
young Heeltap, Lord Boxmoor’s son, who was uncivil to Miss 
Rumbold (the young scoundrel — had I been a fighting man, I 
should like to have shot him myself !). Lady Betty Bulbul is 
very fond of Clara ; and Tom Bulbul, who took George’s mes- 
sage to Heeltap, is always hanging about the studio. At least 
I know that I find the young jackanapes there almost every 
day, bringing a new novel, or some poisonous French poetry, 


52 


OUR STREET. 


or a basket of flowers, or grapes, with Lady Betty^s love to her 
dear Clara — a young rascal with white kids, and his hair curled 
every morning. What business has he to be dangling about 
George Rumbold’s premises, and sticking up his ugly pug-face 
as a model for all George’s pictures ? 

Miss Clapperclaw says Bulbul is evidently smitten, and Clara 
too. What ! would she put up with such a little fribble as that, 
when there is a man of intellect and taste who — but I won’t 
believe it. It is all the jealousy of women. 






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SOME OF OUR GENTLEMEN. 




SOME OF THE SERVANTS IN OUR STREET. 

These gentlemen have two clubs in our quarter — for the 
butlers at the “ Indiaman,’^ and for the gents in livery at the 
“Pocklington Arms ” — of either of which societies I should like 
to be a member. I am sure they could not be so dull as our 
club at the “ Poluphloisboio,” where one meets the same neat, 
clean, respectable old fogies every day. 

But with the best wishes, it is impossible for the present 
writer to join either the Plate Club ” or the Uniform Club ” 
(as these reunions are designated) ; for one could not shake 
hands with a friend who was standing behind your chair, or nod 
a How-d’ye-do ? to the butler who was pouring you out a glass 
of wine j — so that what I know about the guests in our neigh- 
borhood is from mere casual observation. For instance, I have 
a slight acquaintance with (i) Thomas Spavin, who commonly 
wears the above air of injured innocence, and is groom to Mr. 
Joseph Green, of Our Street. tell why the brougham ’oss 
is out of condition, and why Desperation broke out all in a 
lather ! ’Osses will, this ’eavy weather ; and Desperation was 
always the most mystest boss I ever see . — I take him out with 
Mr. Anderson’s ’ounds — I’m above it. I allis was too timid to 
ride to ’ounds by natur ; and Colonel Sprigs^ groom as says he 
saw me, is a liar,’^ &c., &c. 

Such is the tenor of Mr. Spavin’s remarks to his master. 
Whereas all the world in Our Street knows that Mr. Spavin 
spends at least a hundred a year in beer ; that he keeps a 
betting-book; that he has lent Mr. Green’s black brougham 
horse to the omnibus driver ; and, at a time when Mr. G. sup- 
posed him at the veterinary surgeon’s, has lent him to a livery 
stable, which has let him out to that gentleman himself, and 
actually driven him to dinner behind his own horse. 

This conduct I can understand, but I cannot excuse — Mr. 
Spavin may ; and I leave the matter to be settled betwixt him- 
self and Mr. Green. 

The second is Monsieur Sinbad, Mr. Clarence Bulbul’s man, 
whom we all hate Clarence for keeping. 

Mr. Sinbad is a foreigner, speaking no known language, but 
a mixture of every European dialect — so that he may be an 
Italian brigand, or a Tyrolese minstrel, or a Spanish smug- 
gler, for what we know. I have heard say that he is neither of 
these, but an Irish Jew. 

He wears studs, hair-oil, jewelry, and linen shirt-fronts, 

(S3) 


54 


OUR STREET. 


very finely embroidered, but not particular for whiteness. He 
generally appears in faded velvet waistcoats of a morning, and 
is always perfumed with stale tobacco. He wears large rings 
on his hands, which look as if he kept them up the chimney. 

He does not appear to do anything earthly for Clarence 
Bulbul, except to smoke his cigars, and to practise on his guitar. 
He will not answer a bell, nor fetch a glass of water, nor go of 
an errand : on which, au reste, Clarence dares not send him, 
being entirely afraid of his servant, and not daring to use him, 
or to abuse him, or to send him away. 

3. Adams — Mr. Champignon’s man — a good old man in an 
old livery coat with old worsted lace — so very old, deaf, surly, 
and faithful, that you wonder how he should have got into the 
family at all ; who never kept a footman till last year, when 
they came into the street. 

Miss Clapperclaw says she believes Adams to be Mrs, 
Champignon’s father, and he certainly has a look of that lady ; 
as Miss C. pointed out to me at dinner one night, whilst old 
Adams was blundering about amongst the hired men from 
Gunter’s, and falling over the silver dishes. 

4. Fipps, the buttoniest page in all the street ; walks be- 
hind Mrs. Grimsby with her prayer-book, and protects her. 

“ If that woman wants a protector ” (a female acquaint- 
ance remarks), “ heaven be good to us ! She is as big as an 
ogress, and has an upper lip which many a cornet of the Life- 
guards might envy. Her poor dear husband was a big man, 
and she could beat him easily ; and did too. Mrs. Grimsby 
indeed ! Why, my dear Mr. Titmarsh, it is Glumdalca walking 
with Tom Thumb.” 

This observation of Miss C.’s is very true, and Mrs. Grimsby 
might carry her prayer-book to church herself. But Miss Clap • 
perclaw, who is pretty well able to take care of herself too, was 
glad enough to have the protection of the page when she went 
out in the fly to pay visits, and before Mrs. Grimsby and she 
quarrelled at whist at Lady Pocklington’s. 

After this merely parenthetic observation, we come to 5, 
one of her ladyship’s large men, Mr. Jeames — a gentleman of 
vast stature and proportions, who is almost nose to nose with 
us as we pass her ladyship’s door on the outside of the omni- 
bus. I think Jeames has a contempt for a man whom he wit- 
nesses in that position. I have fancied something like that 
feeling showed itself (as far as it may in a well-bred gentleman 
accustomed to society) in his behavior, while waiting behind 
my chair at dinner. 


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H'HY OUR NURSEMAIDS LIKE KENSINGTON GARDENS 



OUR STREET. 


55 


But I take Jeames to be, like most giants, good-natured, 
lazy, stupid, soft-hearted, and extremely fond of drink. One 
night, his lady being engaged to dinner at Nightingale House, 
I saw Mr. Jeames resting himself on a bench at the “ Pochling- 
ton Arms : ” where, as he had no liquor before him, he had 
probably exhausted his credit. 

Little Spitfire, Mr. Clarence Bulbul’s boy, the wickedest 
little varlet that ever hung on to a cab, was “chaffing” Mr. 
Jeames, holding up to his face a pot of porter almost as big 
as the young potifer himself. 

“ Vill you now, Big’un, or von’t you ? ” Spitfire said. “ If 
you’re thirsty, vy don’t you say so and squench it, old boy ? ” 

“ Don’t ago on making fun of me — I can’t abear chaffin’,’^ 
was the reply of Mr. Jeames, and tears actually stood in his 
fine eyes as he looked at the porter and the screeching little 
imp before him. 

Spitfire (real name unknown) gave him some of the drink : 
I am happy to say Jeames’s face wore quite a different look 
when it rose gasping out of the porter ; and I judge of his dis- 
position from the above trivial incident. 

The last boy in the sketch, 6, need scarcely be particularized. 
Doctor’s boy ; was a charity-boy \ stripes evidently added on 
to a pair of the doctor’s clothes of last year — Miss Clapper- 
claw pointed this out to me with a giggle. Nothing escapes 
that old woman. 

As we were walking in Kensington Gardens, she pointed 
me out Mrs. Bragg’s nursery-maidfwho sings so loud at church, 
engaged with a Lifeguardsman, whom she was trying to con 
vert probably. My virtuous friend rose indignant at the sight. 

“ That’s why these minxes like Kensington Gardens,” she 
cried. “ Look at the woman : she leaves the baby on the grass, 
for the giant to trample upon ; and that little wretch of a Hash 
ings Bragg is riding on the monster’s cane.” 

Miss C. flew up and seized the infant, waking it out of its 
sleep, and causing all the gardens to echo with its squalling. 
“ I’ll teach you to be impudent to me,” she said to the nursery- 
maid, with whom my vivacious old friend, I suppose, has had 
a difference ; and she would not release the infant until she 
had rung the bell of Bungalow Lodge, where she gave it up to 
the footman. 

The giant in scarlet had slunk down towards Knightsbridge 
meanwhile. The big rogues are always crossing the Park and 
the Gardens, and hankering about Our Street. 


WHAT SOMETIMES HAPTENS IN OUT STREET. 


It was before old Hunkington’s house that the mutes were 
standing, as I passed and saw this group at the door. The 
charity-boy with the hoop is the son of the jolly-looking mute ; 
he admires his father, who admires himself too, in those bran- 
new sables. Th^ other infants are the spawn of the alleys 
about Our Street. Only the parson and the typhus fever visit 
those mysterious haunts, which lie crouched about our splendid 
houses like Lazarus at the threshold of Dives. 

Those little ones come crawling abroad in the sunshine, to 
the annoyance of the beadles, and the horror of a number of 
good people in the street. They will bring up the rear of the 
procession anon, when the grand omnibus with the feathers, 
and the fine coaches with the long-tailed black horses, and the 
gentlemen’s private carriages with the shutters up, pass along 
to Saint Waltheof’s. 

You can hear the slow bell tolling clear in the sunshine 
already, mingling with the crowing of “ Punch,” who is pass- 
ing down the street with his show ; and the two musics make a 
queer medley. ^ 

Not near so many people, I remark, engage “ Punch ” now 
as in the good old times. I supjDOse our quarter is growing 
too genteel for him. 

Miss Bridget Jones, a poor curate’s daughter in Wales, 
comes into all Hunkington’s property, and will take his name, 
as I am told. Nobody ever heard of her before. I am sure 
Captain Hunkington, and his brother Barnwell Hunkington, 
must wish that the lucky young lady had never been heard of 
to the present day. 

But they will have the consolation of thinking that they did 
their duty by their uncle, and consoled his declining years. It 
was but last month that Millwood Hunkington (the Captain) 
sent the old gentleman a service of plate ; and Mrs. Barnwell 
got a reclining carriage at a great expense from Hobbs and 
Dobb’s, in which the old gentleman went out only once. 

“ It is a punishment on those Hunkingtons,” Miss Clapper- 
claw remarks : “ upon those people who have been always liv- 

(e6) 


t 



* 



A STREET CEREMONY. 

5 






OUR STREET 


57 


ing beyond their little incomes, and always speculating upon 
what the old man would leave them, and always coaxing him 
with presents which they could not afford, and he did not want. 
It is a punishment upon those Hunkingtons to be so disap- 
pointed.” 

“ Think of giving him plate,” Miss C. justly says, who had 
chests-full ; and sending him a carriage, who could afford to 
buy all Long Acre. And everything goes to Miss Jones Hunk- 
ington. I wonder will she give the things back?” Miss 
Clapperclaw asks. “ I wouldn’t.” 

And indeed I don’t think Miss Clapperclaw would. 


SOMEBODY WHOM NOBODY KNOWS. 


That pretty little house, the last in Pocklington Square, waa 
lately occupied by a young widow lady who wore a pink bon- 
net, a short silk dress, sustained by a crinoline, and a light blue 
mantle, or over-jacket (Miss C. is not here to tell me the name 
of the garment) ; or else a black velvet pelisse, a yellow shawl, 
and a white bonnet ; or else — but never mind the dress, which 
seemed to be of the handsomest sort money could buy — and 
who had very long glossy black ringlets, and a peculiarly 
brilliant complexion, — No. 96 Pocklington Square, I say, was 
lately occupied by a widow lady named Mrs. Stafford Moly- 
neux. 

The very first day on which an intimate and valued female 
friend of mine saw Mrs. Stafford Molyneux stepping into a 
brougham, with a splendid bay horse, and without a footman, 
(mark, if you please, that delicate sign of respectability,) and 
after a moment’s examination of Mrs. S. M.’s toilette, her man- 
ners, little dog, carnation-colored parasol, &c.. Miss Elizabeth 
Clapperclaw clapped to the opera-glass with which she had been 
regarding the new inhabitant of Our Street, came away from 
the window in a great flurry, and began poking her fire in a fit 
of virtuous indignation. 

“ She’s very pretty,” said I, who had been looking over Miss 
C.’s shoulder at the widow with the flashing eyes and drooping 
ringlets. 

“ Hold your tongue, sir,” said Miss Clapperclaw, tossing up 
her virgin head with an indignant blush on her nose. “ It’s a 
sin and a shame that such a creature should be riding in her 
carriage, forsooth, when honest people must go on foot.” 

Subsequent observations confirmed my revered fellow- 
lodger’s anger and opinion. We have watched Hansom cabs 
standing before that lady’s house for hours; we have seen 
broughams, with great flaring eyes, keeping watch there in the 
darkness ; we have seen the vans from the comestible-shops 
drive up and discharge loads of wines, groceries, French plums, 
and other articles of luxurious horror. We have seen Count 
Wowski’s drag. Lord Martingale’s carriage, Mr. Deuceace’s 
cab drive up there time after time ; and (having remarked pre- 


0 



THE LADY WHOM NOBODY KNOWS. 





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OUR STREET. 


59 

viously the pastry-cook^s men arrive with the trays and entries)^ 
we have known that this widow was giving dinners at the little 
house in Pocklington Square — dinners such as decent people 
could not hope to enjoy. 

My excellent friend has been in a perfect fury when Mrs. 
Stafford Molyneux, in a black velvet riding-habit, with a hat 
and feather, has come out and mounted an odious gray horse, 
and has cantered down the street, followed by her groom upon 
a bay. 

“ It won’t last long — it must end in shame and humiliation,” 
my dear Miss C. has remarked, disappointed that the tiles and 
chimney-pots did not fall down upon Mrs. Stafford Molyneux’s 
head, and crush that cantering, audacious woman. 

But it was a consolation to see her when she walked out 
with a French maid, a couple of children, and a little dog hang* 
ing on to her by a blue ribbon. She always held down he', 
head then — her head with the drooping black ringlets. The 
virtuous and well-disposed avoided her. I have seen the 
Square-keeper himself looked puzzled as she passed ; and Lady 
Kicklebury walking by with Miss K., her daughter, turn away 
from Mrs. Stafford Molyneux, and fling back at her a ruthless 
Parthian glance that ought to have killed any woman of decent 
sensibility. 

That wretched woman, meanwhile, with her rouged cheeks 
(for rouge it is, Miss Clapperclaw swears, and who is a better 
judge ?) has walked on conscious, and yet somehow braving out 
the Street. You could read pride of her beauty, pride of her 
fine clothes, shame of her position, in her downcast black eyes. 

As for Mademoiselle Trampoline, her French maid, she 
would stare the sun itself out of countenance. One day she 
tossed up her head as she passed under our windows with a 
look of scorn that drove Miss Clapperclaw back to the fire* 
place again. 

It was Mrs. Stafford Molyneux’s children, however, whom 
I pitied the most. Once her boy, in a flaring tartan, went up 
to speak to Master Roderick Lacy, whose maid was engaged 
ogling a policeman ; and the children were going to make 
friends, being united with a hoop which Master Molyneux had, 
when Master Roderick’s maid, rushing up, clutched her charge 
to her arms, and hurried away, leaving little Molyneux sad and 
wondering. 

“ Why won’t he play with me, mamma ? ” Master Molyneux 
asked — and his mother’s face blushed purple as she walked 
away. 


6o 


OUR STREET 


“ Ah — heaven help us and forgive us ! ” said I ; but Miss 
C. can never forgive the mother or child ; and she clapped her 
hands for joy one day when we saw the shutters up, bills in the 
windows, a carpet hanging out over the balcony, and a crowd 
of shabby Jews about the steps — ^giving token that the reign of 
Mrs. Stafford Molyneux was over. The pastry-cooks and their 
trays, the bay and the gray, the brougham and the groom, the 
noblemen and their cabs, were all gone ; and the tradesmen in 
the neighborhood were crying out that they were done. 

‘‘ Serve the odious minx right ! ” says Miss C. ; and she 
played at piquet that night with more vigor than I have known 
her manifest for these last ten years. 

What is it that makes certain old ladies so savage upon 
certain subjects? Miss C. is a good woman ; pays her rent and 
her tradesmen ; gives plenty to the poor ; is brisk with her 
tongue — kind-hearted in the ‘main ; but if Mrs. Stafford Moly- 
neux and her children were plunged into a caldron of boiling 
vinegar, I think my revered friend would not take them out. 


THE MAN IN POSSESSION 


For another misfortune which occurred in Our Street we 
were much more compassionate. We liked Dandy Dixon, and 
his wife Fanny Dixon still more. Miss C. had a paper of bis- 
cuits and a box of preserved apricots always in the cupboard, 
ready for Dixon’s children — provisions by the way which she 
locked up under Mrs. Cammysole’s nose, so that our landlady 
could by no possibility lay a hand on them. 

Dixon and his wife had the neatest little house possible, 
(No. 1 6, opposite 96,) and were liked and respected by the 
whole street He was called Dandy Dixon when he was in 
the Dragoons, and was a light-weight, and rather famous as a . 
gentleman rider. On his marriage, he sold out and got fat \ 
and was indeed a florid, contented, and jovial gentleman. 

His little wife was charming — to see her in pink with some 
miniature Dixons, in pink too, round about her, or in that beauti- 
ful gray dress, with the deep black lace flounces, which she 
wore at my Lord Comandine’s on the night of the private the- 
atricals, would have done any man good. To hear her sing 
any of my little ballads, “ Knowest Thou the Willow-tree ? ” 
for instance, or “ The Rose upon my Balcony,” or “ The Hum- 
ming of the Honey-bee,” (far superior in my judgment, and in 
that of some good judges likewise, to that humbug Clarence 
Bulbul’s ballads,) — to hear her, I say, sing these, was to be in 
a sort of small Elysium. Dear, dear little Fanny Dixon ! she 
was like a little chirping bird of Paradise. It was a shame 
that storms should ever ruffle such a tender plumage. 

Well, never mind about sentiment. Dandy Dixon, the 
owner of this little treasure, an ex-captain of Dragoons, and 
having nothing to do, and a small income, wisely thought he 
would employ his spare time, and increase his revenue. He 
became a director of the Cornaro Life Insurance Company, of 
the Tregulpho tin-mines, and of four or five railroad companies. 
It was amusing to see him swaggering about the City in his 
clinking boots, and with his high and mighty dragoon manners. 

** (>60 


62 


OUR STREET. 


For a time his talk about shares after dinner was perfectly in- 
tolerable ; and I for one was always glad to leave him in the 
company of sundry very dubious capitalists who frequented his 
house, and walked up to hear Mrs. Fanny warbling at the 
piano with her little children about her knees. 

It was only last season that they set up a carriage — the 
modestest little vehicle conceivable — driven by Kirby, who 
had been in Dixon’s troop in the regiment, and had followed 
him into private life as coachman, footman, and page. 

One day lately I went into Dixon’s house, hearing that 
some calamities had befallen him, the particulars of which 
Miss Clapperclaw was desirous to know. The creditors of 
the Tregulpho Mines had got a verdict against him as one of 
the directors of that company ; the engineer of the Little Did- 
dlesex Junction had sued him for two thousand three hundred 
pounds — the charges of that scientific man for six weeks’ labor 
in surveying the line. His brother directors were to be dis- 
covered nowhere : Windham, Dodgin, Mizzlington, and the 
rest, were gone long ago. 

When I entered, the door was open : there was a smell oi 
smoke in the dining-room, where a gentleman at noonday was 
seated with a pipe and a pot of beer : a man in possession in- 
deed, in that comfortable pretty parlor, by that snug roupQ 
table where I have so often seen Fanny Dixon’s smiling face 

Kirby, the ex-dragoon, was scowling at the fellow, who lay 
upon a little settee reading the newspaper, with an evident 
desire to kill him. Mrs. Kirby, his wife, held little Danby, 
poor Dixon’s son and heir. Dixon’s portrait smiled over the 
sideboard still, and his wife was up stairs in an agony of 5ear, 
with the poor little daughters of this bankrupt, broken family. 

This poor soul had actually come down and paid a visit to 
the man in possession. She had sent wine and dinner to “ the 
gentleman down stairs,” as she called him in her terror. She 
had tried to move his heart, by representing to him how inno- 
cent Captain Dixon was, and how he had always paid, and 
always remained at home when everybody else had fled. As if 
her tears ami simple tales and entreaties could move that man 
in possession out of the house, or induce him to pay the costs 
of the action which her husband had lost. 

Danby meanwhile was at Boulogne, sickening after his wife 
and children. They sold everything in his house — all his 
smart furniture and neat little stock of plate ; his wardrobe 
and his linen, “ the property of a gentleman gone abroad ; ” his 
carriage by the best maker ; and his wine selected without re- 







THE MAN IN POSSESSION 







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OUR STREET, 


63 

gard to expense. His house was shut up as completely as his 
opposite neighbor’s ; and a new tenant is just having it fresh 
painted inside and out, as if poor Dixon had left an infection 
behind. 

Kirby and his wife went across the water with the children 
and Mrs. Fanny — she has a small seittlement ; and I am bound 
to say that our mi^tual friend Miss Elizabeth C. went down 
with Mrs. Dixon in the fly to the Tower Stairs, and stopped in 
Lombard Street by the way. 

So it is that the world wags : that honest men and knaves 
alike are always having ups and downs of fortune, and that we 
are perpetually changing tenants in C)ur Street. 


THE LION OF THE STREET 


What people can find in Clarence Bulbul, who has lately 
taken upon himself the rank and dignity of Lion of Our Street, 
I have always been at a loss to conjecture. 

“ He has written an Eastern book of considerable merit,” 
Miss Clapperclaw says ; but hang it, has not everybody written 
an Eastern book ? I should like to meet anybody in society 
now who has not been up to the second cataract. An Eastern 
book forsooth ! My Lord Castleroyal has done one — an honest 
one ; my Lord Youngent another — an amusing one ; my Lord 
Woolsey another — a pious one; there is “The Cutlet and the 
Cabob ” — a sentimental one ; “ Timbuctoothen ” — a humorous 
one, all ludicrously overrated, in my opinion : not including 
my own little book, of which a copy or two is still to be had, 
by the way. 

Well, then, Clarence Bulbul, because he has made part of 
the little tour that all of us know, comes back and gives him- 
self airs, forsooth, and howls as if he were just out of the great 
Libyan desert. 

When we go and see him, that Irish Jew courier, whom I 
have before had the honor to describe, looks up from the novel 
which he is reading in the ante-room, and says, “ Mon maitre 
est au divan,” or, “ Monsieur trouvera Monsieur dans son 
sdrail,” and relapses into the Comte de Montecristo again. 

Yes, the impudent wretch has actually a room in his apart- 
ments on the ground floor of his mother’s house, which he 
calls his harem. When Lady Betty Bulbul (they are of the 
Nightingale family) or Miss Blanche comes down to visit him, 
their slippers are placed at the door, and he receives them on 
an ottoman, and these infatuated women will actually light his 
pipe for him. 

Little Spitfire, the groom, hangs about the drawing-room, 
outside the harem forsooth ! so that he may be ready when 
Clarence Bulbul claps hands for him to bring the pipes and 
coffee. 

He has coffee and pipes for everybody. I should like you 
to have seen the .ace of old Bowly, his college-tutor, called 















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THE LION OF THE STREET 





OUR STREET 


6S 

upon to sit cross-legged on a divan, a little cup of bitter black 
Mocha put into his hand, and a large amber-muzzled pipe 
stuck into his mouth by Spitfire, before he could so much as 
say it was a fine day. Bowly almost thought he had compro- 
mised his principles by consenting so far to this Turkish 
manner. 

Bulbul’s dinners are, I own, very good ; his pilaffs and 
curries excellent. He tried to make us eat rice with our fingers, 
it is true ; but he scalded his own hands in the business, and 
invariably bedizened his shirt : so he has left off the Turkish 
practice, for dinner at least, and uses a fork like a Christian. 

But it is in society that he is most remarkable ; and here 
he would, I own, be odious, but he becomes delightful, because 
all the men hate him so. A perfect chorus of abuse is raised 
round about him “ Confounded impostor,” says one ; “ Impu- 
dent jackass,” says another ; “ Miserable puppy,” cries a third ; 
“ I’d like to wring his neck,’*' says Bruff, scowling over his 
shoulder at him. Clarence meanwhile nods, winks, smiles, and 
patronizes them all with the easiest good-humor. He is a fel- 
low who would poke an archbishop in the apron, or clap a duke 
on the shoulder, as coolly as he would address you and me. 

I saw him the other night at Mrs. Bumpsher’s grand let-off. 
He flung himself down cross-legged upon a pink satin sofa, so 
that you could see Mrs. Bumpsher quiver with rage in the dis- 
tance, Bruff growl with fury from the further room, and Miss 
Pirn, on whose frock Bulbul’s feet rested, look up like a timid 
fawn. 

“Fan me. Miss Pirn,” said he of the cushion. “You look 
like a perfect Peri to-night. You remind me of a girl I once 
knew in Circassia — Ameena, the sister of Schamyl Bey. Do 
you know, Miss Pirn, that you would fetch twenty thousand 
piastres in the market at Constantinople ? ” 

“ Law, Mr. Bulbul ! ” is all Miss Pirn can ejaculate ; and 
having talked over Miss Pirn, Clarence goes off to another 
houri, whom he fascinates in a similar manner. He charmed 
Mrs. Waddy by telling her that she was the exact figure of the 
Pasha of Egypt’s second wife. He gave Miss Tokely a piece 
of the sack in which Zuleika was drowned ; and he actually 
persuaded that poor little silly Miss Vain to turn Mahometan, 
and sent her up to the Turkish Ambassador’s to look out for a 
mufti. 


THE DOVE OF OUR STREET. 


If Bulbul is our Lion, Young Oriel may be described as The 
Dove of our colony. He is almost as great a pasha among the 
ladies as Bulbul. They crowd in flocks to see him at Saint 
Waltheof s, where the immense height of his forehead, the rigid 
asceticism of his surplice, the twang with which he intones the 
service, and the namby-pamby mysticism of his sermons, have 
turned all the dear girls’ heads for some time past. While we 
were having a rubber at Mrs. Chauntry’s, whose daughters are 
following the new mode, I heard the following talk (wLich made 
me revoke by the way) going on, in what was formerly called 
the young ladies’ room, but is now styled the oratory : — 

THE ORATORY. 

MISS CHAUNTRY. MISS ISABEL CHAUNTRY. 

MISS DE L’AISLE. MISS PYX. 

REV. L. ORIEL. REV. O. SI.OCVU— {In the further room. 1 

Miss Chautitry (sighing), — Is it wrong to be in the Guards, 
Dear Mr. Oriel ? 

Miss Pyx. — She will make Frank de Boots sell out when he 
marries. 

Mrs, Oriel. — To be in the Guards, dear sister ? The 
church has always encouraged the army. Saint Martin of Tours 
was in the army ; Saint Louis was in the army ; Saint Waltheof, 
our patron. Saint Witikind of Aldermanbury, Saint Wamba, 
and Saint Walloff were in the army. Saint Wapshot was cap- 
tain of the guard of Queen Boadicea ; and Saint Werewolf was 
a major in the Danish cavalry. The holy Saint Ignatius of 
Loyola carried a pike, as we know ; and 

Miss De r Aisle. — Will you take some tea, dear Mr. Oriel ? 

Oriel. — This is one of my feast days. Sister Emma. It is 
the feast of Saint Wagstafl of Walthamstow. 

The Young Ladies. — And we must not even take tea ? 

Oriel. — Dear sisters, I said not so. You may do as you 
list ; but I am strong (^with a heart-broken sigh) ; don’t ply me 
( 66 ) 


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THE DOVE OF THE STREET 





OUR STREET, 67 

(he reels). I took a little water and a parched pea after matins. 
To-morrow is a flesh day, and — and I shall be better then. 

Rev. O. Slocum {from within). — Madam, I take your heart 
with my small trump. 

Oriel. — Yes, better! dear sister; it is only a passing — a — 
weakness. 

Miss I. Chauntry. — He’s dying of fever. 

Miss Chauntry. — I’m so glad De Boots need not leave the 
Blues. 

Miss Pyx. — He wears sackcloth and ashes and cinders in- 
side his w'aistcoat. 

Miss De r Aisle. — He’s told me to-night he’s going to — to 
— Ro-o-ome. [Miss De r Aisle bursts into tears ^ 

Rev. O. Slocum — My lord, I have the highest club, which 
gives the trick and two by honors. 

Thus, you see, we have a variety of clerg}^men in Our Street. 
Mr. Oriel is of the pointed Gothic school, while old Slocum is 
of the good old tawny port-wine school ; and it must be con- 
fessed that Mr. Gronow at Ebenezer, has a hearty abhorrence 
for both. 

As for Gronow, I pity him, if his future lot should fall where 
Mr. Oriel supposes that it will. 

And as for Oriel he has not even the benefit of purgatory, 
which he would accord to his neighbor Ebenezer ; while old 
Slocum pronounces both to be a couple of humbugs ; and Mr. 
Mole, the demure little beetle-browed chaplain of the little 
church of Avemary Lane, keeps his sly eyes down to the 
ground when he passes any one of his black-coated brethren. 

There is only one point on which, my friends they seem 
agreed. Slocum likes port, but who ever heard that he ne- 
glected his poor ? Gronow, if he comminates his neighbor’s 
congregation, is the affectionate father of his own. Oriel, if he 
loves pointed Gothic and parched peas for breakfast, has a 
prodigious soup-kitchen for his poor ; and as for little Father 
Mole, who never lifts his eyes from the ground, ask our doctor 
at what bedsides he finds him, and how he soothes poverty 
and braves misery and infection. 


THE BUMPSHERS, 


No. 6 Pocklington Gardens, (the house with the quantity of 
flowers in the windows, and the awning over the entrance,) 
George Bumpsher, Esquire, M. P. for Humborough (and the 
Beanstalks, Kent). 

For some time after this gorgeous family came into our 
quarter, I mistook a bald-headed, stout person, whom I used to 
see looking through the flowers on the upper windows, for 
Bumpsher himself, or for the butler of the family ; whereas it 
was no other than Mrs. Bumpsher, without her chestnut wig, 
and who is at least three times the size of her husband. 

The Bumpshers and the house of Mango at the Pineries vie 
together in their desire to dominate over the neighborhood ; 
and each votes the other a vulgar and purse-proud family. 
The fact is, both are City people. Bumpsher, in his mercantile 
capacity, is a wholesale stationer in Thames Street ; and his 
wife was daughter of an eminent bill-broking firm, not a thou- 
sand miles from Lombard Street. 

He does not sport a coronet and supporters upon his Lon- 
don plate and carriages ; but his country-house is emblazoned 
all over with those heraldic decorations. He puts on an order 
when he goes abroad, and is Count Bumpsher of the Roman 
States — which title he purchased from the late Pope (through 
Prince Polonia the banker) for a couple of thousand scudi. 

It is as good as a coronation to see him and Mrs. Bumpsher 
go to Court. I wonder the carriage can hold them both. On 
those days Mrs. Bumpsher holds her own drawing-room before 
her Majesty’s ; and we are invited to come and see her sitting 
in state, upon the largest sofa in her rooms. She has need of 
a stout one, I promise you. Her very feathers must weigh 
something considerable. The diamonds on her stomacher 
would embroider a full-sized carpet-bag. She has rubies, 
ribbons, cameos, emeralds, gold serpents, opals, and Valen- 
ciennes lace, as if she were an immense sample out of Howell 
and James’s shop. 



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VENUS AND CUPID. 



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OUR STREET. 


She took up with little Pink- 
ney at Rome, where he made a 
charming picture of her, repre- 
senting her as about eighteen, 
with a cherub in her lap, who 
has some liking to Bryanstone 
Bumpsher, her enormous, vul- 
gar son ; now a cornet in the 
Blues, and anything but a 
cherub, as those would say who 
saw him in his uniform jacket. 

I remember Pinkney when 
he was painting the picture, 

Bryanstone being then a youth 
in what they call a skeleton 
suit (as if such a pig of a child 
could ever have been dressed in 
anything resembling a skeleton) — I remember, I say, Mrs. B. 
sitting to Pinkney in a sort of Egerian costume, her boy by 
her side, whose head the artist turned round and directed it 
towards a piece of gingerbread, which he was to have at the 
end of the sitting. 

Pinkney, indeed, a painter ! — a contemptible little humbug, 
and parasite of the great ! He has painted Mrs. Bumpsher 
younger every year for these last ten years — and you see in the 
advertisements of all her parties his odious little name ,«tuck in 
at the end of the list. I’m sure, for my part, I’d scorn to 
her doors, or be the toady of any woman. 

6 


C9 



yozzr jvjswBoVy esq., m. p. 


How different it is with the Newboys, now, where I have an 
entree (having indeed had the honor in former days to give 
lessons to both the ladies) — and where such a quack as Pink- 
ney would never be allowed to enter ! A merrier house the 
whole quarter cannot furnish. It is there you meet people of 
all ranks and degrees, not only from our quarter, but from the 
rest of the town. It is there that our great man, the Right 
Honorable Lord Comandine, came up and spoke to me in so 
encouraging a manner that I hope to be invited to one of his 
lordship’s excellent dinners (of which I shall not fail to give a 
very flattering description) before the season is over. It is 
there you find yourself talking to statesmen, poets, and artists 
— not sham poets like Bulbul, or quack artists like that Pinkney 
— but to the best members of all society. It is there I made 
this sketch, while Miss Chesterforth was singing a deep-toned 
tragic ballad, and her mother scowling behind her. What a 
buzz and clack and chatter there was in the room to be sure ! 
When Miss Chesterforth sings, everybody begins to talk. 
Hicks and old Fogy were on Ireland : Bass was roaring into 
old Pump’s ears (or into his horn rather) about the Navigation 
Laws ; I was engaged talking to the charming Mrs. Short ; 
while Charley Bonham (a mere prig, in whom I am surprised 
that the women can see anything,) was pouring out his fulsome 
rhapsodies in the ears of Diana White. Lovely, lovely Diana 
White ! were it not for three or four other engagements, I know 
a heart that would suit you to a T. 

Newboy’s I pronounce to be the jolliest house in the street. 
He has only of late had a rush of prosperity, and turned Par- 
liament man ; for his distant cousin, of the ancient house of 

Newboy of shire, dying, Fred — 'then making believe to 

practise at the bar, and living with the utmost modesty in 
Gray’s Inn Road — found himself master of a fortune, and a 
great house in the country; of which getting tired, as in the 
course of nature he should, he came up to London, and took 
that fine mansion in our Gardens. He represents Mumborough 
in Parliament, a seat which has been time out of mind occupied 
by a Newboy. 

(70) 



THE SIREN OF OUR STREET 










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THE STREET-DOOR KEY, 






OUR STREET. 


71 

Though he does not speak, being a great deal too rich, sen- 
sible, and lazy, he somehow occupies himself with reading blue- 
books, and indeed talks a great deal too much good sense of 
late over his dinner-table, where there is always a cover for the 
present writer. 

He falls asleep pretty assiduously too after that meal — a 
practice which I can well pardon in him — for, between our- 
selves, his wife, Maria Newboy, and his sister, Clarissa, are the 
loveliest and kindest of their sex, and I would rather hear their 
innocent prattle, and lively talk about their neighbors, than the 
best wisdom from the wisest man that ever wore a beard. 

Like a wise and good man, he leaves the question of his 
household entirely to the women. They like going to the play. 
They like going to Greenwich. They like coming to a party 
at Bachelor’s Hall. They are up to all sorts of fun, in a word ; 
in which taste the good-natured Newboy acquiesces, provided 
he is left to follow his own. 

It was only on the 17th of the month, that, having had the 
honor to dine at the house, when, after dinner, which took place 
at eight, we left Newboy to his blue-books, and went up stairs 
and sang a little to the guitar afterwards — it was only on the 
17th December, the night of Lady Sowerby’s party, that the 
following dialogue took place, in the boudoir, whither Newboy, 
blue-books in hand, had ascended. 

He was curled up with his House of Commons boots on his 
wife’s arm-chair, reading his eternal blue-books, when Mrs. N. 
entered from her apartment, dressed for the evening. 

Mrs. N. — Frederick, won’t you come ? 

Mr. iV:— -Where ? 

Mrs. JSr. — To Lady Sowerby’s. 

Mr. N. — I’d rather go to the Black Hole in Calcutta. Be- 
sides, this Sanitary Report is really the most interesting — SJu 
begins to readi\ 

Mrs. N. (^piqued') — Well, Mr. Titmarsh will go with us. 

Mr. N. — Will he ? I wish him joy. 

At this juncture Miss Clarissa Newboy enters in a pink 
paletot, trimmed with swan’s-down — looking like an angel — 
and we exchange glances of — what shall I say ? — of sympa- 
thy on both parts, and consummate rapture on mine. But this 
is by-play. 

Mrs. N. — Good-night, Frederick. I think we shall be late. 

Mr. N. — You won’t wake me, I dare say ; and you don’t 
expect a public man to sit up. 

Mrs. A^-^It’s not you-, it’s the servants. Cocker sleeps 


72 


OUR STREET. 


very heavily. The maids are best in bed, and are all ill with 
the influenza. I say, Frederick dear, don’t you think you had 
better give me your chubb key ? 

This astonishing proposal, which violates every recognized 
law of society — this demand which alters all the existing state 
of things — this fact of a woman asking for a door-key, struck 
me with a terror which I cannot describe, and impressed me 
with the fact of the vast progress of Our Street. The door- 
key ! What would our grandmothers, who dwelt in this place 
when it was a rustic suburb, think of its condition now, when 
husbands stay at home, and wives go abroad with the latch- 
key ? 

The evening at Lady Sowerby’s was the most delicious we 
have spent for long, long days. 

Thus it will be seen that everybody of any consideration in 
Our Street takes a line. Mrs. Minimy (34) takes the homoeo- 
pathic line, and has soirees of doctors of that faith. Lady 
Pocklington takes the capitalist line ; and those stupid and 
splendid dinners of hers are devoured by loan- contractors and 
railroad princes. Mrs. Trimmer (38) comes out in the scienti- 
fic line, and indulges us in rational evenings, where history is 
the lightest subject admitted, and geology and the sanitary con- 
dition of the metropolis form the general themes of conversa- 
tion. Mrs. Brumby plays finely on the bassoon, and has even- 
ings dedicated to Sebastian Bach, and enlivened with Handel. 
At Mrs. Maskleyn’s they are mad for charades and theatricals. 

They performed last Christmas in a French piece, by Alex- 
andre Dumas, I believe — La Duchesse de Montefiasco,” of 
which I forget the plot, but everybody was in love with every- 
body else’s wife, except the hero, Don Alonzo, who was ardently 
attached to the Duchess, who turned out to be his grandmother. 
The piece was translated by Lord Fiddle-faddle, Tom Bulbul 
being the Don Alonzo ; and Mrs. Roland Calidore (who never 
misses an opportunity of acting in a piece in which she can let 
down her hair) was the Duchess. 


Alonzo. 

You know how well he loves you, and you wonder 
To see Alonzo suffer, Cunegunda ? — 

Ask if the chamois suffer when they feel 
Plunged in their panting sides the hunter’s steel ? 

Or when the soaring heron or eagle proud. 

Pierced by my shaft, comes tumbling from the cloud. 



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A SCENE OF PASSION 


OUR STREET. 


1Z 


Ask if the royal birds no anguish know, 

The victims of Alonzo’s twanging bow? 

Then ask him if he suffers — him who dies, 

Pierced by the poisoned glance that glitters from your eyes ? 

\^He staggers from the effect of the poison. 

The Duchess. 

Alonzo loves — Alonzo loves ! and whom ? 

His grandmother 1 Oh, hide me, gracious tomb ! 

\^Her Grace faints away. 

Such acting as Tom Bulbul’s I never saw. Tom lisps 
atrociously, and uttered the passage, “You athk me if I 
thuffer,” in the most absurd way. Miss Clapperclaw says he 
acted pretty well, and that I only joke about him because I am 
envious, and wanted to act a part myself. — I envious indeed ! 

But of all the assemblies, feastings, junketings, ddjehnes, 
soirdes, conversaziones, dinner-parties, in Our Street, I know 
of none pleasanter than the banquets at Tom Fairfax’s ; one of 
which this enormous provision-consumer gives seven times a 
week. He lives in one of the little houses of the old Waddilove 
Street quarter, built long before Pocklington Square and Pock- 
lington Gardens and the Pocklington family itself had made 
their appearance in the world. 

Tom, though he has a small income, and lives in a small 
house, yet sits down one of a party of twelve to dinner every 
day of his life ; these twelve consisting of Mrs. Fairfax, the nine 
Misses Fairfax, and Master Thomas Fairfax — the son and heir 
to twopence halfpenny a year. 

It is awkward just now to go and beg pot-luck from such a 
family as this ; because, though a guest is always welcome, we 
are thirteen at table — an unlucky number, it is said. This evil 
is only temporary, and will be remedied presently, when the 
family will be thirteen without the occasional guest, to judge 
from all appearances. 

Early in the morning Mrs. Fairfax rises, and cuts bread and 
butter from six o’clock till eight ; during which time the nursery 
operations upon the nine little graces are going on. We only 
see a half-dozen of them at this present moment, and in the 
present authentic picture, the remainder dwindling off upon 
little chairs by their mamma. 

The two on either side of Fairfax are twins — awarded to him 
by singular good fortune ; and he only knows Nancy from Fanny 
by having a piece of tape round the former’s arm. There is no 

6 * 


74 


OUR STREET, 


need to give you the catalogue of the others. She m the pina- 
fore in front is Elizabeth, goddaughter to Miss Clapperclaw, who 
has been very kind to the whole family ; that young lady with 
the ringlets is engaged by the most solemn ties to the present 
writer, and it is agreed that we are to be married as soon as she 
is as tall as my stick. 

If his wife has to rise early to cut the bread and butter, I 
warrant Fairfax must be up betimes to earn it. He is a clerk 
in a Government office ; to which duty he trudges daily, refusing 
even twopenny omnibuses. Every time he goes to the shoe- 
maker’s he has to order eleven pairs of shoes, and so can’t 
afford to spare his own. He teaches the children Latin every 
morning, and is already thinking when Tom shall be inducted 
into that language. He works in his garden for an hour before 
breakfast. His work over by three o’clock, he tramps home 
at four, and exchanges his dapper coat for that dressing-gown 
in which he appears before you, — a ragged but honorable 
garment in which he stood (unconsciously) to the present 
designer. 

Which is the best, his old coat or Sir John’s bran new one } 
Which is the most comfortable and becoming, Mrs. Fairfax’s 
black velvet gown (which she has worn at the Pocklington 
Square parties these twelve years, and in which I protest she 
looks like a queen), or that new robe which the milliner has 
just brought home to Mrs. Bumpsher’s, and into which she will 
squeeze herself on Christmas-day 

Miss Clapperclaw says that we are all so charmingly con- 
tented with ourselves that not one of us would change wiih his 
neighbor ; and so, rich and poor, high and low, one person is 
about as happy as another in Our Street. 


THE END OF “ OUR STREET.’ 





THE HAPPY FAMILY. 


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DOCTOR BIRCH 


AND 

HIS YOUNG FRIENDS. 



By Mr. M. A. TITMARSH. 





DOCTOR BIRCH 


THE DOCTOR AND HIS STARE 

There is no need to say why I became assistant-master and 
professor of the English and French languages, flower-painting, 
and the German flute, in Dr. Birch’s Academy, at Rodwell 
Regis. Good folks may depend on this, that it was not for 
choice that I left lodgings near London, and a genteel society, 
for an under-master’s desk in that old school. I promise you 
the fare at the usher’s table, the getting up at five o’clock in the 
morning, the walking out with little boys in the fields, (who usea 
to play me tricks, and never could be got to respect my awful 
and responsible character as teacher in the school,) Miss Birch’s 
vulgar insolence. Jack Birch’s glum condescension, and the 
poor old Doctor’s patronage, were not matters in themselves 
pleasurable : and that that patronage and those dinners were 
sometimes cruel hard to swallow. Nevermind — my connection 
with the place is over now, and I hope they have got a more 
efficient under-master. 

Jack Birch (Rev. J. Birch, of St. Neot’s Hall, Oxford,) is 
partner with his father the Doctor, and takes some of the 
classes. About his Greek I can’t say much ; but I will construe 
him in Latin any day. A more supercilious little prig, (giving 
himself airs, too, about his cousin. Miss Raby, who lives with 
the Doctor,) a more empty, pompous little coxcomb I never saw. 
His white neckcloth looked as if it choked him. He used to 
try and look over that starch upon me and Prince the assistant, 
as if we were a couple of footmen. He didn’t do much business 
in the school ; but occupied his time in writing sanctified letters 
to the boys’ parents, and in composing dreary sermons to 
preach to them. 


( 77 ) 


78 dr. birch and his young friends. 

The real master of the school is Prince ; an Oxford man 
.00 : shy, haughty, and learned ; crammed with Greek and a 
quantity of useless learning; uncommonly kind to the small 
boys ; pitiless with the fools and the braggarts ; respected of 
all for his honesty, his learning, his bravery, (for he hit out once 
in a boat-row in a way which astonished the boys and the barge- 
men,) and for a latent power about him, which all saw and con- 
fessed somehow. Jack Birch could never look him in the face. 
Old Miss Z. dared not put off any of her airs upon him. Miss 
Rosa made him the lowest of curtseys. Miss Raby said she 
was afraid of him. Good old Prince ! we have sat many a 
night smoking in the Doctor’s harness-room, whither we 
retired when our boys were gone to bed, and our cares and 
canes put by. 

After Jack Birch had taken his degree at Oxford — a process 
which he effected with great difficulty — this place, which used 
to be called “ Birch’s,” “ Dr. Birch’s Academy,” and what not, 
became suddenly “Archbishop Wigsby’s College of Rodwell 
Regis.” They took down the old blue board with the gold 
letters, which has been used to mend the pigsty since. Birch 
had a large school-room run up in the Gothic taste, with 
statuettes, and a little belfry, and a bust of Archbishop Wigsby 
in the middle of the school. He put the six senior boys into 
caps and gowns, which had rather a good effect as the lads 
sauntered down the street of the town, but which certainly pro- 
voked the contempt and hostility of the bargemen ; and so 
great was his rage for academic costumes and ordinances, that 
he would have put me myself into a lay gown, with red knots 
and fringes, but that I flatly resisted, and said that a writing- 
master had no business with such paraphernalia. 

By the way, I have forgotten to mention the Doctor himself. 
And what shall I say of him ? Well, he has a very crisp gown 
and bands, a solemn aspect, a tremendous loud voice, and a 
grand air with the boys’ parents ; whom he receives in a study 
covered round with the best-bound books, which imposes upon 
many — upon the women especially — and makes them fancy 
that this is a Doctor indeed. But law bless you ! He never 
reads the books, or opens one of them ; except that in which 
he keeps his bands — a Dugdale’s “ Mofiasticon,” which looks 
like a book, but is in reality a cupboard, where he has his port, 
almond-cakes, and decanter of wine. He gets up his classics 
with translations, or what the boys call cribs ; they pass wicked 
tricks upon him when he hears the forms. The elder wags go 
to his study and ask him to help them in hard bits of Herod- 



A YOUNG KAPHAET 














DR. BIRCH AND HIS YOUNG FRIENDS. 


79 

otus or Thucydides : he says he will look over the passage, 
and flies for refuge to Mr. Prince, or to the crib. 

He keeps the flogging department in his own hands ; finding 
that his son was too savage. He has awful brows and a big 
voice. But his roar frightens nobody. It is only a lion’s skin ; 
or, so to say, a muff. 

Little Mordant made a picture of him with large ears, like 
a well-known domestic animal, and had his own justly boxed 
for the caricature. The Doctor discovered him in the act, and 
was in a flaming rage, and threatened whipping at first ; but in 
the course of the day an opportune basket of game arriving 
from Mordant’s father, the Doctor became mollified, and has 
burnt the picture with the ears. However, I have one wafered 
up in my desk by the hand of the same little rascal ; and the 
frontispiece of this very book is drawn from it. 


THE COCK OF THE SCHOOL. 


I AM growing an old fellow, and have seen many great folks 
in the course of my travels and time ; Louis Philippe coming 
out of the Tuileries; his Majesty the King of Prussia and the 
Reichsverweser accolading each other at Cologne at my elbow \ 
Admiral Sir Charles Napier (in an omnibus once); the Duke of 
Wellington, the immortal Goethe at Weimar, the late benevo- 
lent Pope Gregory XVI., and a score more of the famous in 
this world — the whom whenever one looks at, one has a mild 
shock of awe and tremor. I like this feeling and decent fear 
and trembling with which a modest spirit salutes a Great 
Man. 

Well, I have seen generals capering on horseback at the 
head of their crimson battalions ; bishops sailing down cathe- 
dral aisles, with downcast eyes, pressing their trencher caps to 
their hearts with their fat white hands ; college heads when 
her Majesty is on a visit ; the doctor in all his glory at the 
head of his school on speech-day : a great sight and all great 
men these. I have never met the late Mr, Thomas Cribb, 
but I have no doubt should have regarded him with the same 
feeling of awe with which I look every day at George Cham- 
pion, the Cock of Dr. Birch’s school. 

When, I say, I reflect as I go up and set him a sum, that 
he could whop me in two minutes, double up Prince and the 
other assistant, and pitch the Doctor out of window, I can’t 
but think how great, how generous, how magnanimous a crea- 
ture this is, that sits quite quiet and good-natured, and works 
his equation, and ponders through his Greek play. He might 
take the school-room pillars and pull the house down if he 
liked. He might close the door, and demolish every one of 
us, like Antar the lover of Ibla ; but he lets us live. He never 
thrashes anybody without a cause ; when woe betide the tyrant 
or the sneak ! 

I think that to be strong, and able to whop everybody — 
(not to do it, mind you, but to feel that you were able to do it), 

- — would be the greatest of all gifts. There is a serene good- 
humor which plays about George Champion’s broad face, which 

(So) 


DK. BIKCIl AND HIS YOUNG FRIENDS. 8i 

shows the consciousness of his power, and lights up his honest 
blue eyes with a magnanimous calm. 

He is invictus. Even when a cub there was no beating 
this lion. Six years ago the undaunted little warrior actually 
stood up to Frank Davison, — (the Indian officer now — poor 
little Charley’s brother, whom Miss Raby nursed so affection- 
ately,) — then seventeen years old, and the Cock of Birch’s. 
They were obliged to drag off the boy, and Frank, with admira- 
tion and regard for him, prophesied the great things he would 
do. Legends of combats are preserved fondly in schools ; they 
have stories of such at Rodwell Regis, performed in the old 
Doctor’s time, forty years ago. 

Champion’s affair with the Young Tutbury Pet, who was 
down here in training, — with Black the bargeman, — with the 
three head boys of Doctor Wapshot’s academy, whom he 
caught maltreating an outlying day-boy of ours, &c., — are 
known to all the Rodwell Regis men. He was always vic- 
torious. He is modest and kind, like all great men. He has 
a good, brave, honest understanding. He cannot make verses 
like young Finder, or read Greek like Wells the Prefect, who 
is a perfect young abyss of learning, and knows enough, Prince 
says, to furnish any six first-class men ; but he does his work 
in a sound downright way, and he is made to be the bravest 
of soldiers, the best of country parsons, an honest English 
gentleman wherever he may go. 

Old Champion’s chief friend and attendant is Young Jack 
Hall, whom he saved, when drowning, out of the Miller’s Pool. 
The attachment of the two is curious to witness. The smaller 
lad gambolling, playing tricks round the bigger one, and per- 
petually making fun of his protector. They are never far 
apart, and of holidays you may meet them miles away from the 
school, — George sauntering heavily down the lanes with his 
big stick, and little Jack larking with the pretty girls in the 
cottage windows. 

George has a boat on the river, in which, however, he com- 
monly lies smoking, whilst Jack sculls him. He does not play 
at cricket, except when the school plays the county, or at 
Lord’s in the holidays. The boys can’t stand his bowling, and 
when he hits, it is like trying to catch a cannon-ball. I have 
seen him at tennis. It is a splendid sight to behold the young 
fellow bounding over the court with streaming yellow hair, like 
young Apollo in a flannel-jacket. 

The other head boys are Lawrence the captain, Bunce, 
famous chiefly for his magnificent appetite, and Pitman, sur- 


82 


DR. BIRCH AND HIS YOUNG FRIENDS. 


named Roscius, for his love of the drama. Add to these 
Swanky, called Macassar, from his partiality to that condi- 
ment, and who has varnished boots, wears white gloves on 
Sundays, and looks out for Miss Pinkerton’s school (trans- 
ferred from Chiswick to Rodwell Regis, and conducted by the 
nieces of the late Miss Barbara Pinkerton, the friend of our 
great lexicographer, upon the principles approved by him, and 
practised by that admirable woman), as it passes into church. 

Representations have been made concerning Mr. Horace 
Swanky’s behavior ; rumors have been uttered about notes in 
verse, conveyed in three-cornered puffs, by Mrs. Ruggles, who 
serves Miss Pinkerton’s young ladies on Fridays, — and how 
Miss Didow, to whom the tart and enclosure were addressed, 
tried to make away with herself by swallowing a ball of cotton. 
But I pass over these absurd reports, as likely to affect the 
reputation of an admirable seminary conducted by irreproach- 
able females. As they go into church. Miss P. driving in her 
flock of lambkins with the crook of her parasol, how can it be 
helped if her forces and ours sometimes collide, as the boys are 
on their way up to the organ-loft ? And I don’t believe a 
word about the three-cornered puff, but rather that it was the 
invention of that jealous Miss Birch, who is jealous of Miss 
Raby, jealous of everybody who is good and handsome, and 
who has her own ends in view, or I am very much in error. 


THE LITTLE SCHOOL-ROOM. 


What they call the little school-room is a small room at the 
other end of the great school ; through which you go to the 
Doctor’s private house, and where Miss Raby sits with her 
pupils. She has a half-dozen very small ones over whom she 
presides and teaches them in her simple way, until they are big 
or learned enough to face the great school-room. Many of 
them are in a hurry for promotion, the graceless little simpletons, 
and know no more than their elders when they are well off. 

She keeps the accounts, writes out the bills, superintends 
the linen, and sews on the general shirt-buttons. Think of 
having such a woman at home to sew on one’s shirt-buttons ! 
But peace, peace, thou foolish heart ! 

Miss Raby is the Doctor’s niece. Her mother was a beauty 
(quite unlike old Zoe therefore) ; and she married a pupil in the 
old Doctor’s time, who was killed afterwards, a captain in the 
East India service, at the siege of Bhurtpore. Hence a number 
of Indian children came to the Doctor’s ; for Raby was very 
much liked, and the uncle’s kind reception of the orphan has 
been a good speculation for the school-keeper. 

It is wonderful how brightly and gayly that little quick crea- 
ture does her duty. She is the first to rise, and the last to sleep 
if any business is to be done. She sees the other two women 
go off to parties in the town without even so much as wishing 
to join them. It is Cinderella, only contented to stay at home 
— content to bear Zoe’s scorn and to admit Rosa’s superior 
charms, — and to do her utmost to repay her uncle for his great 
kindness in housing her. 

So you see she works as much as three maid-servants for 
the wages of one. She is as thankful when the Doctor gives 
her a new gown, as if he had presented her with a fortune ; 
laughs at his stories most good-humoredly, listens to Zoe’s 
scolding most meekly, admires Rosa with all her heart, and 
only goes out of the way when Jack Birch shows his sallow face : 
for she can’t bear him, and always finds work when he comes 
near. 

How different she is when some folks approach her ! I 

(83) 


84 DR. BIRCH AND HIS YOUNG FRIENDS. 

won’t be presumptuous ; but I think, I think, I have made a 
not unfavorable impression in some quarters. However, let us 
be mum on this subject. I like to see her, because she always 
\ooks good-humored ; because she is always kind, because she 
is always modest, because she is fond of those poor little brats, 
— orphans some of them — because she is rather pretty, I dare 
say, or because I think so, which comes to the same thing. 

Though she is kind to all, it must be owned she shows the 
most gross favoritism towards the amiable children. She brings 
them cakes from dessert, and regales them with Zoe’s preserves \ 
spends many of her little shillings in presents for her favorites, 
and will tell them stories by the hour. She has one very sad 
story about a little boy, who died long ago : the younger chil- 
dren are never weary of hearing about him ; and Miss Raby has 
shown to one of them a lock of the little chap’s hair, which she 
keeps in her work-box to this day. 







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THE DEAR liROTHERli. 





THE DEAR BROTHERS. 

% ptlobrama m ^ebjeral 
The Doctor. 

Mr. Tipper, Uncle to the Masters Boxall. 

Boxall Major, Boxall Minor, Brown, Jones, 

Smith, Robinson, Tiffin Minimus. 

B. Go it, old Boxall ! 
y. Give it him, young Boxall 1 

R. Pitch into him, old Boxall ! 

S. Two to one on young Boxall ! 

\Enter Tiffin Minimus, running. 

Tiffin Minimus . — Boxalls ! you’re wanted. 

{The Doctor to Mr. Tipperi ) — Every boy in the school loves 
them, my dear sir ; your nephews are a credit to my establish- 
ment. They are orderly, well-conducted, gentleman-like boys. 
Let us enter and find them at their studies. 

[Enter The Doctor and Mr. Tipper, 


GRAND TABLEAU. 

7 


(8s) 


A HOPELESS CASE. 


Let us, people who are so uncommonly clever and learned, 
have a great tenderness and pity for the poor folks who are not 
endowed with the prodigious talents which we have. I have 
always had a regard for dunces ; — those of my own school-days 
were amongst the pleasantest of the fellows, and have turned 
out by no means the dullest in life ; whereas many a youth 
who could turn oif Latin hexameters by the yard, and construe 
Greek quite glibly, is no better than a feeble prig now, with 
not a pennyworth more brains than w^ere in his head before his 
beard grew. 

Those poor dunces ! Talk of being the last man, ah ! what 
a pang it must be to the last boy — huge, misshapen, fourteen 
years of age, and “ taken up by a chap who is but six years 
old, and can’t speak quite plain yet ! 

Master Hulker is in that condition at Birch’s. He is the 
most honest, kind, active, plucky, generous creature. He can 
do many things better than most boys. He can go up a tree, 
pump, play at cricket, dive and swim perfectly — he can eat 
twice as much as almost any lady (as Miss Birch well knows), 
he has a pretty talent at carving figures with his hack-knife, he 
makes and paints little coaches, he can take a watch to pieces 
and jDut it together again. He can do everything but learn his 
lesson ; and then he sticks at the bottom of the school hope- 
less. As the little boys are drafted in from Miss Raby’s class, 
(it is true she is one of the best instructresses in the world,) 
they enter and hop over poor Hulker. He would be handed 
over to the governess, only he is too big. Sometimes I used to 
think that this desperate stupidity was a stratagem of the poor 
rascal’s, and that he shammed dulness, so that he might be de- 
graded into Miss Raby’s class — if she would teach me, I know, 
before George, I would put on a pinafore and a little jacket — 
but no, it is a natural incapacity for the Latin Grammar. 

If you could see this grammar, it is a perfect curiosity of 
dog’s ears. The leaves and cover are all curled and ragged. 
Many of the pages are worn away with the rubbing of his elbows 
as he sits poring over the hopeless volume, wdth the blows of his 
( 86 ) 


L>R. BIRCH AND HIS YOUNG FRIENDS. 


87 

fists as he thumps it madly, or with the poor fellow’s tears. 
You see him wiping them away with the back of his hand, as 
he tries and tries, and can’t do it. 

When I think of that Latin grammar, and that infernal As 
in praesenti, and of other things which I was made to learn in 
my youth ; upon my conscience, I am surprised that we ever 
survived it. When one thinks of the boys who have been 
caned because they could not master that intolerable jargon ! 
Good Lord, what a pitiful chorus these poor little creatures 
send up ! Be gentle with them, ye schoolmasters, and only 
whop those who won't learn. 

The Doctor has operated upon Hulker (between ourselves), 
but the boy was so little affected you would have thought he 
had taken chloroform. Birch is weary of whipping now, and 
leaves the boy to go his own gait. Prince, when he hears the 
lesson, and who cannot help making fun of a fool, adopts the 
sarcastic manner with Master Hulker, and says, “ Mr. Hulker, 
may I take the liberty to inquire if your brilliant intellect has 
enabled you to perceive the difference between those words 
which grammarians have defined as substantive and adjective 
nouns ? — if not, perhaps Mr. Ferdinand Timmins will instruct 
you.” And Timmins hops over Hulker’s head. 

I wish Prince would leave off girding at the poor lad. He 
is a boy, and his mother is a widow woman, who loves him 
with ail her might. There is a famous sneer about the suck- 
ling of fools and the chronicling of small beer • but remember 
it was a rascal who uttered it 


A WORD ABOUT MISS BIRCH, 


^‘The gentlemen, and especially the younger and more ten- 
der of these pupils, will have the advantage of the constant 
superintendence and affectionate care of Miss Zoe Birch, sister 
of the principal : whose dearest aim will be to supply (as far as 
may be) the absent maternal friend.” — Prospectus of Rodwell 
Regis School. ^ 

This is all very well in the Doctor’s prospectus, and Miss 
Zoe Birch — (a pretty blossom it is, fifty-five years old, during 
two score of which she has dosed herself with pills ; with a 
nose as red and a face as sour as a crab-apple) — this is all 
mighty well in a prospectus. But I should like to know who 
would take Miss Zoe for a mother, or would have her for one ? 

The only persons in the house who are not afraid of her 
are Miss Rosa and I — no, I am afraid of her, though I do know 
the story about the French usher in 1830 — but all the rest 
tremble before the woman, from the Doctor down to poor 
Francis the knife-boy, whom she bullies into his miserable 
blacking-hole. 

The Doctor is a pompous and outwardly severe man — but 
inwardly weak and easy ; loving a joke and a glass of port-wine. 
I get on with him, therefore, much better than Mr. Prince, who 
scorns him for an ass, and under whose keen eyes the worthy 
Doctor writhes like a convicted impostor; and many a sun- 
shiny afternoon would he have said, “ Mr. T., sir, shall we try 
another glass of that yellow sealed wine which you seem to 
like ? ” (and which he likes even better than I do,) had not the 
old harridan of a Zoe been down upon us, and insisted on 
turning me out with her abominable weak coffee. She a 
mother indeed ! A sour-milk generation she would have 
nursed. She is always croaking, scolding, bullying, — yowling 
at the housemaids, snarling at Miss Raby, bowwowing after 
the little boys, barking after the big ones. She knows how 
much every boy eats to an ounce ; and her delight is to ply 
with fat the little ones who can’t bear it, and with raw meat 
those who hate underdone. It was she who caused the Doctor 
to be eaten out three times ; and nearly created a rebellion in 
the school because she insisted on his flogging Goliath Long- 
man. 

The only time that woman is happy is when she comes in 
of a morning to the little boys’ dormitories with a cup of hot 
Epsom salts, and a sippet of bread. Boo ! — the very notion 
makes me quiver. She stands over them. I saw her do it to 
( 88 ) 





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DR. BIRCH AND HIS YOUNG FRIENDS. 89 

young Byles only a few days since ; and her presence makes 
the abomination doubly abominable. 

As for attending them in real illness, do you suppose that 
she would watch a single night for any one of them ? Not she. 
When poor little Charley Davison (thct child a lock of whose 
soft hair I have said how Miss Raby sti’i keeps) lay ill of scar- 
let fever in the holidays — for the Colonel, the father of these 
boys, was in India — it was Anny Raby who tended the child, 
who watched him all through the fever, who never left him 
while it lasted, or until she had closed the little eyes that were 
never to brighten or moisten more. Anny watched and de- 
plored him ; but it was Miss Birch who wrote the letter an- 
nouncing his demise, and got the gold chain and locket which 
the Colonel ordered as a memento of his gratitude. It was 
through a row with Miss Birch that Frank Davison ran away. 
I promise you that after he joined his regiment in India, the 
Ahmednuggur Irregulars, which his gallant father commands, 
there came over no more annual shawls and presents to Dr. 
and Miss Birch \ and that if she fancied the Colonel was com- 
ing home to marry her (on account of her tenderness to his 
motherless children, which he was always writing about), that 
notion was very soon given up. But these affairs are of early 
date, seven years back, and I only heard of them in a very con- 
fused manner from Miss Raby, who was a girl, and had just 
come to Rodwell Regis. She is always very much moved when 
she speaks about those boys ; which is but seldom. I take it 
the death of the little one still grieves her tender heart. 

Yes, it is Miss Birch, who has turned away seventeen 
ushers and second-masters in eleven years, and half as many 
French masters, I suppose, since the departure of her favorite^ 
M. Grinche, with her gold watch, &c. ; but this is only surmise 
— that is, from hearsay, and from Miss Rosa taunting her aunt, 
as she does sometimes, in her graceful way ; but besides this, I 
have another way of keeping her in order. 

Whenever she is particularly odious or insolent to Miss 
Raby, I have but to introduce raspberry jam into the conversa- 
tion, and the woman holds her tongue. She will understanc^ 
me. I need not say more. 

Note, 12th December . — I may speak now. I have left the 
place and don’t mind. I say then at once, and without caring 
twopence for the consequences, that I saw this woman, this 
mother of the boys, eating jam with a spoon out of Master 
Wiggins’ trunk in the box-room : and of this I am ready to 
take an affidavit any day. 


A TRAGEDY, 


l'H£ DRAMA OUGHT TO BE REPRESENTED IN ABOUT SIX ACTS* 

\The school is hushed Lawrence the Prefect, and Gustos of the rods, is 
marching after the Doctor into the operating-room. Master Back- 
house is about to follow\ 

• Master Backhouse. — It’s all very well, but you see if I don’t 

pay you out after school — you sneak you ! 

Master Lurcher , — If you do I’ll tell again. 

♦ 

\Exit Backhouse. 

[ Die rod is heard from the adjoining apartment, Htohish — hwhish — hwish — 
hwish^^hwish—hwish — hwish ! 




\Re-enter Backhouse. 


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A HAMPER FOR BRIGGS S. 

7 * 













BRIGGS IN LUCK, 


Enter the Knife-boy . — Hamper for Briggses ! 

Master Broivn. — Hurry, Tom Briggs ! Til lend you my 
knife. 


If this story does not carry its own moral, what fable does, 
I wonder } Before the arrival of that hamper, Master Briggs 
was in no better repute than any young gentleman of the lower 
school ; and in fact I had occasion myself, only lately, to cor- 
rect Master Brown for kicking his friend’s shins during the 
writing-lesson. But how this basket, directed by his mother’s 
housekeeper and marked “ Glass with care,” (whence I con- 
cluded that it contains some jam and some bottles of wine, 
probably, as well as the usual cake and game-pie, and half a 
sovereign for the elder Master B., and five new shillings for 
Master Decimus Briggs) — how, I say, the arrival of this basket 
alters all Master Briggs’s circumstances in life, and the estima- 
tion in which many persons regard him ! 

If he is a good-hearted boy, as I have reason to think, the 
very first thing he will do, before inspecting the contents of 
the hamper, or cutting into them with the knife which Master 
Brown "has so considerately lent him, will be to read over the 
letter from home which lies on the top of the parcel. He does 
so, as I remark to Miss Raby (for whom I happened to be 
mending pens when the little circumstance arose), with a flushed 
face and winking eyes. Look how the other boys are peering 
into the basket as he reads. — I say to her, “ Isn’t it a pretty 
picture ? ” Part of the letter is in a very large hand. This is 
from his little sister. And I would wager that she netted the 
little purse which he has just taken out of it, and which Master 
Lynx is eyeing. 

“ You are a droll man, and remark all sorts of queer things,” 
Miss Raby says, smiling, and plying her swift needle and 
fingers as quick as possible. 

“ I am glad we are both on the spot, and that the little fel- 

(90 


92 


DR. BIRCH AND HIS YOUNG FRIENDS. 


low lies under our guns as it were, and so is protected from 
some such brutal school-pirate as young Duval for instance, 
who would rob him, probably, of some of those good things \ 
good in themselves, and better because fresh from home. See, 
there is a pie as I said, and which I dare say is better than 
those which are served at our table (but you never take any 
notice of such kind of things. Miss Raby), a cake of course, a 
bottle of currant-wine, jam-pots, and no end of pears in the 
straw. With their money little Briggs will be able to pay the 
tick which that impudent child has run up with Mrs. Ruggles ; 
and I shall let Briggs Major pay for the pencil-case which 
Bullock sold to him. — It will be a lesson to the young prodigal 
for the future. But, I say, what a change there will be in his 
life for some time to come, and at least until his present wealth 
is spent ! The boys who bully him will mollify towards him, 
and accept his pie and sweetmeats. They will have feasts in 
the bedroom ; and that wine will taste more delicious to them 
than the best out of the Doctor’s cellar. The cronies will be 
invited. Young Master Wagg will tell his most dreadful story 
and sing his best song for a slice of that pie. What a jolly 
night they will have ! When we go the rounds at night, Mr. 
Prince and I will take care to make a noise before we come to 
Briggs’s room, so that the boys may have time to put the light 
out, to push the things away, and to scud into bed. Doctor Spry 
may be put in requisition the next morning.” 

“Nonsense! you absurd creature,” cries out Miss Raby, 
laughing ; and I lay down the twelfth pen very nicely mended. 

“ Yes j after luxury comes the doctor, I say ; after extrava- 
gance a hole in the breeches-pocket. To judge from his dis- 
position, Briggs Major will not be much better off a couple of 
days hence than he is now ; and, if I am not mistaken, will end 
life a poor man. Brown will be kicking his shins before a 
week is over, depend upon it. There are boys and men of all 
sorts, Miss R. — There are selfish sneaks who hoard until the 
store they daren’t use grows mouldy — there are spendthrifts 
who fling away, parasites who flatter and lick its shoes, and 
snarling curs who hate and envy, good fortune.” 

I put down the last ot the pens, brushing away with it the 
quill-chips from her desk first, and she looked at me with a 
kind, wondering face. I brushed them away, clicked the pen- 
knife into my pocket, made her a bow, and walked <}ff — ^for the 
bell was ringing for school. 



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PIRATE 







DUVAL THE FIE ATE. 


Jones passes Jaden with tarts. 

Tkival . — Hullo ! you small boy with the tarts ! Come here, 
sir. 

yunes Minimus. — Please, Duval, they ain’t mine. 

Duval. — Oh, you abominable young story-teller. 

\^He confiscates the goods. 

I think I like young Duval’s mode of levying contributions 
better than Bullock’s. The former’s, at least, has the merit 
cf more candor. Duval is the pirate of Birch’s, and lies in 
wait for small boys laden with money or provender. He scents 
plunder from afar off : and pounces out on it.* Woe betide 
the little fellow when Duval boards him ! 

There was a youth here whose money I used to keep, as he 
was of an extravagant and weak taste ; and I doled it out to 
him in weekly shillings, sufficient for the purchase of the neces- 
sary tarts. This boy came to me one day for half a sovereign, 
for a very particular purpose, he said. I afterwards found he 
wanted to lend the money to Duval. 

The young ogre burst out laughing, when in a great wrath 
and fury I ordered him to refund to the little boy : and pro- 
posed a bill of exchange at three months. It is true Duval’s 
father does not pay the Doctor, and the lad never has a shil- 
ling, save that which he levies ; and though he is always brag- 
ging about the splendor of Freenystown, Co. Cork, and the fox- 
hounds his father keeps, and the claret they drink there — there 
comes no remittance from Castle Freeny in these bad times to 
the honest Doctor; who is a kindly man enough, and never 
yet turned an insolent boy out of doors. 


THE DORMITORIES. 


MASTER HEWLETT AND MASTER NIGHTINGALE. 


{Rather a cold winter night.) 

Hewlett {^flinging a shoe at Master Nightingale's bed^ with 
which he hits that young gentleman). — Hullo, you ! Get up and 
bring me that shoe ! 

Nightingale. — Yes, Hewlett. {He gets up i) 

Hewlett. — Don’t drop it, and be very careful of it, sir. 

Nightingale. — Yes, Hewlett. 

Hewlett. — Silence in the dormitory ! Any boy who opens his 
mouth. I’ll murder him. Now, Sir, are not you the boy what 
can sing ? 

Nightingale. — Yes, Hewlett. 

Hewlett. — Chaunt, then, till I go to sleep, and if I wake 
when you stop, you’ll have this at your head. 


[Master 'Hewlett lays his Bluchers on the bed, ready to shy at 
Master Nightingal/s head in the case contemplatedi\ 

Nightingale (timidly). — Please, Hewlett ? 

Hewlett. — Well, sir ? 

Nightingale. — May I put on my trousers, please ? 

Hewlett. — No, sir ! Go on, or I’ll 

Nightingale . — 


“ Through pleasures and palaces 
Though we may roam, 

Be it ever so humble 
There’s no place like home.” 


( 96 ) 





HOME, SWEET HUME- 














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A CAPTURE AND A RESCUE. 


My young friend, Patrick Champion, George’s youngei 
brother, is a late arrival among us ; has much of the family 
quality and good nature ; is not in the least a tyrant to the 
small boys, but is as eager as Amadis to fight. He is boxing 
his way up the school, emulating his great brother. He fixes 
his eye on a boy above him in strength or size, and you hear 
somehow that a difference has arisen between them at football, 
and they have their coats off presently. He has thrashed him- 
self over the heads of many youths in this manner : for in- 
stance, if Champion can lick Dobson, who can thrash Hobson, 
how much more, then, can he thrash Hobson } Thus he works 
up and establishes his position in the school. Nor does Mr. 
Prince think it advisable that we ushers should walk much in 
the way when these little differences are being settled, unless 
there is some gross disparity, or danger is apprehended. 

For instance, I own to having seen the row depicted here as 
I was shaving at my bedroom window. I did not hasten down 
to prevent its consequences. Fogle had confiscated a top, the 
property of Snivins ; the which, as the little wretch was always 
pegging it at my toes, I did not regret. Snivins whimpered \ 
and young Champion came up, lusting for battle. Directly he 
made out Fogle, he steered for him, pulling up his coat-sleeves, 
and clearing for action. 

“ Who spoke to you, young Champion ? ” Fogle said, and 
he flung down the top to Master Snivins. I knew there would 
be no fight j and perhaps Champion, too, was disappointed. 

(97) 


THE GARDEN, 


WHERE THE PARLOR-BOARDERS GO. 

Noblemen have been rather scarce at Birch’s — ^but the heii 
of a great Prince has been living with the Doctor for some years. 
— He is Lord George Gaunt’s eldest son, the noble Plantagenet 
Gaunt Gaunt, and nephew of the Most Honorable the Marquis 
of Steyne. 

They are very proud of him at the Doctor’s — and the two 
Misses and Papa, whenever a stranger comes down whom they 
want to dazzle, are pretty sure to bring Lord Steyne into the 
conversation, mention the last party at Gaunt House, and cur- 
sorily to remark that they have with them a young friend who 
will be, in all human probability. Marquis of Steyne and Earl 
of Gaunt, &c. 

Plantagenet does not care much about these future honors : 
provided he can get some brown sugar on his bread-and-butter, 
or sit with three chairs and play at coach-and-horses quite 
quietly by himself, he is tolerably happy. He saunters in and 
out of school when he likes, and looks at the master and other 
boys with a listless grin. He used to be taken to church, but 
he laughed and talked in odd places, so they arc forced to leave 
him at home now. He will sit with a bit of string and play 
cat’s-cradle for many hours. He likes to go and join the very 
small children at their games. Some are frightened at him ; 
but they soon cease to fear, and order him about. I have seen 
him go and fetch tarts from Mrs. Ruggles for a boy of eight 
years old ; and cry bitterly if he did not get a piece. He can- 
not speak quite plain, but very nearly ; and is not more, I sup- 
pose, than three-and-twenty. 

Of course at home they know his age, though they never 
come and see him. But they forget that Miss Rosa Birch is 
no longer a young chit, as she was ten years ago, when Gaunt 
was brought to the school. On the contrary, she has had no 
small experience in the tender passion, and is at this moment 
smitten with a disinterested affection for Plantagenet Gaunt. 

Next to a little doll with a burnt nose, which he hides awav 

(g8) 


DR. BIRCH AND HIS YOUNG FRIENDS. 


99 


in cunning places, Mr. Gaunt is very fond of Miss Rosa too. 
What a pretty match it would make ! and how pleased they 
would be at Gaunt House, if the grandson and heir of the 
great Marquis of Steyne, the descendant of a hundred Gaunts 
and Tudors, should marry Miss Birch, the schoolmaster’s 
daughter ! It is true she has the sense on her side, and poor 
Plantagenet is only an idiot : but there he is, a zany, with such 
expectations and such a pedigree ! 

If Miss Rosa would run away with Mr. Gaunt, she would 
leave off bullying her cousin. Miss Anny Raby. Shall I pui 
her up to the notion, and offer to lend her the money to run 
away ? Mr. Gaunt is not allowed money. He had some once, 
but Bullock took him into a corner, and got it from him. He 
has a moderate tick opened at a tart-woman’s. He stops at 
Rodwell Regis through the year : school-time and holiday-time, 
it is all the same to him. Nobody asks about him, or thinks 
about him, save twice a year, when the Doctor goes to Gaunt 
House, and gets the amount of his bills, and a glass of wine in 
the steward’s room. 

And yet you see somehow that he is a gentleman. His 
manner is diferent to that of the owners of that coarse table 
and parlor at which he is a boarder (I do not speak of Miss 
R. of course, ioxher manners are as good as those of a duchess). 
When he caught Miss Rosa boxing little Fiddes’s ears, his face 
grew red, and he broke into a fierce inarticulate rage. After 
that, and for some days, he used to shrink from her ; but they 
are reconciled now. I saw them this afternoon in the garden 
where only the parlor-boarders walk. He was playful, and 
touched her with his stick. She raised her handsome eyes in 
surprise, and smiled on him very kindly. 

The thing was so clear, that I thought it my duty to speak 
to old Zoe about it. The wicked old catamaran told me she 
wished that some people would mind their own business, and 
hold their tongues — that some persons were paid to teach 
writing, and not to tell tales and make mischief: and I have 
since been thinking whether I ought to communicate with the 
Doctor. 8 


THE OLD PUPIL. 


As I came into the play-grounds this morning, I saw a clash 
ing young fellow, with a tanned face and a blonde mustache, 
who was walking up and down the green arm-in-arm with Cham 
pion Major, and followed by a little crowd of boys. 

They were talking of old times evidently. “ What had be- 
come of Irvine and Smith ? ” — “ Where was Bill Harris and 
Jones : not Squinny Jones, but Cocky Jones ? ” — and so forth. 
The gentleman was no stranger ; he was an old pupil evidently, 
come to see if any of his old comrades remained, and revisit 
the cari luoghi of his youth. 

Champion was evidently proud of his arm-fellow. He es- 
pied his brother, young Champion, and introduced him. “ Come 
here, sir,” he called. “ That young ’un w'asn’t here in ypur 
time, Davison.” “ Pat, sir,” said he, “ this is Captain Davison, 
one of Birch’s boys. Ask him who was among the first in the 
lines at Sobraon ? ” 

Pat’s face kindled up as he looked Davison full in the face, 
and held out his hand. Old Champion and Davison both 
blushed. The infantry set up a “ Hurray, hurray, hurray,” 
Champion leading, and waving his wide-awake. I protest that 
the scene did one good to witness. Here was the hero and 
cock of the school come back to see his old haunts and cronies. 
He had always remembered them. Since he had seen them 
last, he had faced death and achieved honor. But for my 
dignity I would have shied up my hat too. 

With a resolute step, and his arm still linked in Cham- 
pion’s, Captain Davison now advanced, followed by a wake of 
little boys, to that corner of the green where Mrs. Ruggles has 
her tart-stand. 

“ Hullo, Mother Ruggles ! don’t you remember me ? ” he 
said, and shook her by the hand. 

“Lor’, if it ain’t Davison Major ! ” she said. “ Well, Davi- 
son Major, you owe me fourpence for two sausage-rolls from 
when you went away.” 

Davison laughed, and all the little crew of boys set up s 
similar chorus. 

(loo) 


DR. BIRCH AND HIS YOUNG FRIENDS. 


lOI 


“ I buy the whole shop,” he said. “ Now, young uns — eat 
away ! ” 

'Fhen there was such a “ Hurray ! hurray ! ” as surpassed 
the former cheer in loudness. Everybody engaged in it except 
Piggy Dulf, who made an instant dash at the three-cornered 
puffs, but was stopped by Champion, who said there should be 
a fair distribution. And so there was, and no one lacked, 
neither of raspberry, open tarts, nor of mellifluous bulls’-eyes, 
nor of polonies, beautiful to the sight and taste. 

The hurraying brought out the old Doctor himself, who put 
his hand up to his spectacles and started when he saw the old 
pupil. Each blushed when he recognized the other ; for seven 
years ago they had parted not good friends. 

“ What — Davison ? ” the Doctor said, with a tremulous 
voice. “ God bless you, my dear fellow ! ” — and they shook 
hands. “ A half-holiday, of course, boys,” he added, and there 
was another hurray : there was to be no end to the cheering 
that day. 

“ How’s — how’s the family, sir ? ” Captain Davison asked. 

“ Come in and see. Rosa’s grown quite a lady. Dine 
with us, of course. Champion Major, come to dinner at five. 
Mr. Titmarsh, the pleasure of your company ? ” The Doctor 
swung open the garden-gate : the old master and pupil entered 
the house reconciled. 

I thought I would first peep into Miss Raby’s room, and 
tell her of this event. She was working away at her linen 
there, as usual quiet and cheerful. 

“ You should put up,” I said with a smile ; “ the Doctor 
has given us a half-holiday.” 

“ I never have holidays,” Miss Raby replied. 

Then I told her of the scene I had just witnessed, of the 
arrival of the old pupil, the purchase of the tarts, the procla- 
mation of the holiday, and the shouts of the boys of “ Hurray, 
Davison ! 

“ Who is it ? ” cried out Miss Raby, starting and turning 
as white as a sheet. 

I told her it was Captain Davison from India; and de- 
scribed the appearance and behavior of the Captain. When I 
had finished speaking, she asked me to go and get her a glass 
of water ; she felt unwell. But she was gone when I came 
back with the water. 

I know all now. After sitting for a quarter of an hour 
with the Doctor, who attributed his guest’s uneasiness no doubt 
to his desire to see Miss Rosa Birch, Davison started up and 


i02 


DR. BIRCH A HD HIS YOUNG FRIENDS. 


said he wanted to see Miss Raby. “ You remember, sir, how 
kind she was to my little brother, sir ? ” he said. Whereupon 
the Doctor, with a look of surprise, that anybody should want 
to see Miss Raby, said she was in the little school-room ; 
whither the Captain went, knowing the way from old times. 

A few minutes afterwards, Miss B. and Miss Z. returned 
from a drive with Plantagenet Gaunt in their one-horse fly, and 
being informed of Davison’s arrival, and that he was closeted 
with Miss Raby in the little school-room, of course made for 
that apartment at once. I was coming into it from the other 
door. I wanted to know whether she had drunk the water. 

This is what both parties saw. The two were in this very 
attitude. “ Well, upon my word ! ” cries out Miss Zoe ; but 
Davison did not let go his hold ; and Miss Raby’s head only 
sank down on his hand. 

“You must get another governess, sir, for the little boys,” 
Frank Davison said to the Doctor. “ Anny Raby has promised 
to come with me.” 

You may suppose I shut to the door on my side. And 
when I returned to the little school-room, it was black and 
empty. Everybody was gone. I could hear the boys shouting 
at play in the green outside. The glass of water was on the 
table where I had placed it. I took it and drank it myself, to 
the health of Anny Raby and her husband. It was rather a 
choker. 

But of course I wasn’t going to stop on at Birch’s. When 
his young friends reassemble on the ist of February next, they 
will have two new masters. Prince resigned too, and is at 
present living with me at my old lodgings at Mrs. Cammysole’s. 
If any nobleman or gentleman wants a private tutor for his son, 
a note to the Rev. F. Prince will find him there. 

Miss Clapperclaw says we are both a couple of old fools ; 
and that she knew when I set off last year to Rodwell Regis, 
after meeting the two young ladies at a party at General Cham- 
pion’s house in our street, that I was going on a goose’s errand. 
I shall dine there on Chri^tmas-day ; and so I wish a merry 
Christm.as to all young and old boys. 



WAN rKI). A C.OVFRNFSS 














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EPILOGUE, 


The play is done ; the curtain drops, 

Slow falling, to the prompter’s bell : 

A moment yet the actor stops, 

And looks around, to say farewell. 

It is an irksome word and task ; 

And when he’s laughed and said his say, 

He shows, as he removes the mask, 

A face that’s anything but gay. 

One word, ere yet the evening ends. 

Let’s close it with a parting rhyme. 

And pledge a hand to all young friends. 

As fits the merry Christmas time. 

On life’s wide scene you, too, have parts, 

That Fate ere long shall bid you play ; 
Good-night ! with honest gentle hearts 
A kindly greeting go alway I 

Good-night ! I’d say the griefs, the joys, 

Just hinted in this mimic page. 

The triumphs and defeats of boys. 

Are but repeated in our age. 

I’d say, your woes were not less keen. 

Your hopes more vain, than those of men ; 
Your pangs or pleasures of fifteen. 

At forty-five played o’er again. 

I’d say, we suffer and we strive 
Not less nor more as men than boys, 

With grizzled beards at forty-five. 

As erst at twelve, in corduroys. 

And if, in time of sacred youth. 

We learned at home to love and pray. 

Pray heaven, that early love and truth 
May never wholly pass away. 

(103) 


DR BIRCH AND HIS YOUNG FRIENDS, 


iC4 


And in the world, as in the school, 

I’d say, how fate may change and shift • 
The prize be sometimes with the fool, 
The race not always to the swift. 

The strong may yield, the good may fall, 
The great man be a vulgar clown, 

The knave be lifted over all. 

The kind cast pitilessly down. 


Who knows the inscrutable design > 

Blessed be He who took and gave ; 

Why should your mother, Charles, not mine, 
Be weeping at her darling’s grave ? * 

We bow to heaven that will’d it so. 

That darkly rules the fate of all, 

That sends the respite or the blow. 

That’s free to give or to recall. 


This crowns his feast with wine and wit : 
Who brought him to that mirth and state ? 
His betters, see, below him sit. 

Or hunger hopeless at the gate. 

Who bade the mud from Dives’ wheel 
To spurn the rags of Lazarus ? 

Come, brother, in that dust we’ll kneel. 
Confessing heaven that ruled it thus. 


So each shall mourn in life’s advance, 
Dear hopes, dear friends, untimely killed ; 
Shall grieve for many a forfeit chance, 

A longing passion unfulfilled. 

Amen : whatever Fate be sent, — 

Pray God the heart may kindly glow, 
Although the head with cares be bent. 
And whitened with the winter snow. 


Come wealth or want, come good or ill, 
Let young and old accept their part. 
And bow before the Awful Will, 

And bear it with an honest heart. 


* C. B., ob Dec. 1843, set. 42. 


DR. BIRCH AND HIS YOUNG FRIENDS. 

Who misses, or who wins the prize ? 

Go, lose or conquer as you can : 

But if you fail, or if you rise, 

Be each, pray God, a gentleman, 

A gentleman, or old or young : 

(Bear kindly with my humble lays), 

The sacred chorus first was sung 
Upon the first of Christmas days. 

The shepherds heard it overhead — 

The joyful angels raised it then : 

Glory to heaven on high, it said. 

And peace on earth to gentle men. 

My song, save this, is little worth ; 

I lay the weary pen aside. 

And wish you health, and love, and mirth, 
As fits the solemn Christmas tide. 

As fits the holy Christmas birth. 

Be this, good friends, our carol still — 

Be peace on earth, be peace on earth, 

To men of gentle will. 


"ND OF ‘‘dr. birch and HIS YOUNG FRIENDS.* 
8 * 



THE KICKLEBURYS 


ON THE RHINE. 



By Mr. M. A. TITMARSH, 



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PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION 


BEING 

AJSr BSSA V ON THUNDER AND SMALL BEER. 

Any reader who may have a fancy to purchase a copy of 
this present edition of the “ History of the Kickleburys 
Abroad,” had best be warned in time, that the Times news- 
paper does not approve of the work, and has but a bad opinion 
both of the author and his readers. Nothing can be fairer than 
this statement : if you happen to take up the poor little volume 
at a railroad station, and read this sentence, lay the book down, 
and buy something else. You are warned. What more can 
the author say ? If after this you will buy, — amen ! pay your 
money, take your book, and fall to. Between ourselves, honest 
reader, it is no very strong potation which the present purveyor 
offers to you. It will not trouble your head much in the drink- 
ing. It was intended for that sort of negus which is offered at 
Christmas parties ; and of which ladies and children may par- 
take with refreshment and cheerfulness. Last year I tried a 
brew which was old, bitter, and strong ; and scarce any one 
would drink it. This year we send round a milder tap, and it is 
liked by customers : though the critics (who like strong ale, 
the rogues !) turn up their noses. In heaven’s name, Mr. 
Smith, serve round the liquor to the gentlefolks. Pray, dear 
madam, another glass ; it is Christmas time, it will do you no 
harm. It is not intended to keep long, this sort of drink. 
(Come, froth up, Mr. Publisher, and pass quickly round !) And 
as for the professional gentlemen, we must get a stronger sort 
for them some day. 

The Times* gentleman (a very difficult gent to please) is the 
loudest and noisiest of all, and has made more hideous faces 
over the refreshment offered to him than any other critic. 
There is no use shirking this statement ! when a man has 
been abused in the Times, he can’t hide it, any more than he 
could hide the knowledge of his having been committed to 
prison by Mr. Henry, or publicly caned in Pall Mall. You see 

(io9) 


I TO 


PREFACE rO THE SECOND EDITION: 


it in your friends’ eyes when they meet you. They know it. 
They have chuckled over it to a man. They whisper about it 
at the club, and look over the paper at you. My next-door 
neighbor came to see me this morning, and I saw by his face 
that he had the whole story pat. “ Hem ! ” says he, “ well, I 
have heard of it ; and the fact is, they were talking about you 
at dinner last night, and mentioning that the Times had — ahem ! 
— ‘ walked into you.’ ” 

“ My good M ” I say — and M will corroborate, if 

need be, the statement I make here — “ here is the Times^ 
article, dated January 4th, which states so and so, and here is 
a letter from the publisher, likewise dated January 4th, and 
which says : — 

“ My dear Sir, — Having this day sold the last copy of the 
first edition (of a: thousand) of the ‘ Kickleburys Abroad,’ and 
having orders for more, had we not better proceed to a second 
edition ? and will you permit me to enclose an order on,” &c., 
&c. 

Singular coincidence ! And if every author who was so 
abused by a critic had a similar note from a publisher, good 
Lord ! how easily would we take the critic’s censure ! 

“ Yes, yes,” you say; “it is all very well for a writer to 
affect to be indifferent to a critique from the Times. You bear 
it as a boy bears a flogging at school, without crying out ; but 
don’t swagger and brag as if you liked it.” 

Let us have truth before all. I would rather have a good 
word than a bad one from any person : but if a critic abuses 
me from a high place, and it is worth my while, I will appeal. 
If I can show that the judge who is delivering sentence against 
me, and laying down the law and making a pretence of learn- 
ing, has no learning and no law, and is neither more nor less 
than a pompous noodle, who ought not to be heard in any 
respectable court, I will do so ; and then, dear friends, perhaps 
you will have something to laugh at in this book. — 

“The Kicklebury’s Abroad. 

“It has been customary, of late years, for the purveyors of amusing literature — the popular 
authors of the day — to put forth certain opuscules, denominated ‘ Christmas Books,’ with 
the ostensible intention of swelling the tide of exhilaration, or other expansive emotions, 
incident upon the exodus of the old and the Inauguration of the new year. We have said 
that their ostensible intention was such, because there is another motive for these produc- 
tions, locked up (as the popular author deems) in his own breast, but which betrays itself, in 
the quality of the work, as his principal incentive. Oh ! that any muse should be set upon 
a high stool to cast up accounts and balance a ledger! Yet, so it is ; and the popular author 
6nds it convenient to fill up the declared deficit, and place himself in a position the more 


AN ESSAY ON THUNDER AND SMALL BEER. 


1 1 1 


effectually to encounter those liabilities which sternly assert themselves contemporaneously 
and in contrast with the careless and free-handed tendencies of the season by the emission 
of Christmas books — a kind of literary assignats, representing to the emitter expunged 
debts, to the receiver an investment of enigmatical value. For the most part bearing the 
stamp of their origin in the vacuity of the writer’s exchequer rather than in the fulness of 
his genius, they suggest by their feeble flavor the rinsings of a void brain after the more 
important concoctions of the expired year. Indeed, we should as little think of taking these 
compositions as examples of the merits of their authors as we should think of measuring the 
valuable services of Mr. Walker, the postman, or Mr. Bell, the dust-collector, by the copy 
of verses they leave at our doors as a provocative of the expected annual gratuity — effusions 
with which they may fairly be classed for their intrinsic worth no less than their ultimate 
purport* 

“ In the Christmas book presently under notice, the author appears (under the thin 
disguise of Mr. Michael Angelo Titmarsh) in ^ proprlcB personce ’ as the popular author, 
the contributor to Punch, the remorseless pursuer of unconscious vulgarity and feeble- 
mindedness, launched upon a tour of relaxation to the Rhine. But though exercising, as 
is the wont of popular authors in their moments of leisure, a plentiful reserve of those 
higher qualities to which they are indebted for their fame, his professional instincts are not 
altogether in abeyance. From the moment his eye lights upon a luckless family group 
embarked on the same steamer with himself, the sight of his accustomed quarry — vulgarity, 
imbecilily, and affectation — reanimates his relaxed sinews, and, playfully fastening his 
satiric fangs upon the familiar prey, he dallies with it in mimic ferocity like a satiated 
mouser. 

“Though faintly and carelessly indicated, the characters are those with which the 
author loves to surround himself. A tuft-hunting county baronet’s widow, an inane cap- 
tain of dragoons, a graceless young baronet, a lady with groundless pretensions to feeble 
health and poesy, an obsequious nonentity her husband, and a flimsy and artificial young 
lady, are the personages in whom we are expected to find amusement. Two individuals 
alone form an exception to the above category, and are offered to the respectful admiration 
of the reader, — the one, a shadowy serjeant-at-law, Mr. Titmarsh’s travelling companion, 
who escapes with a few side puffs of flattery, which the author struggles not to render ironi- 
cal, and a mysterious countess, spoken of in a tone of religious reverence, and apparently 
introduced that we may learn by what delicate discriminations our adoration of rank should 
be regulated. 

“To those who love to hug themselves in a sense of superiority by admeasurement with 
the most worthless of their species, in their most worthless aspects, the Kickleburys on 
the Rhine will afford an agreeable treat, especially as the purveyor of the feast offers his 
own moments of human weakness as a modest entrie in this banquet of erring mortality. 
To our own, perhaps unphilosophical, taste the aspirations towards sentimental perfection 
of another popular author are infinitely preferable to these sardonic divings after the pearl 
of truth, luhos^ lustre is eclipsed in the display of the diseased oyster. Much, in the pres- 
ent instance, perhaps all, the disagreeable effect of his subject is no doubt attributable to 
the absence of Mr. Thackeray’s usual brilliancy of style. A few flashes, however, occur, 
• such as the description of M. Lenoir’s gaming establishment, with the momentous crisis to 
which it was subjected, and the quaint and imaginative sallies evoked by the whole town of 
Rougetnoirbourg and its lawful prince. These, with the illustrations, which are spirited 
enough, redeem the book from an absolute ban. Mr. Thackeray’s pencil is more congenial 
than his pen. He cannot draw his men and women with their skins off, and, therefore, the 
effigies of his characters are pleasanter to contemplate than the flayed anatomies of the letter- 
press.” 

There is the whole article. And the reader will see (in the 
paragraph preceding that memorable one which winds up with 
the diseased oyster) that he must be a worthless creature for 
daring to like the book, as he could only do so from a desire 
to hug himself in a sense of superiority by admeasurement with 
the most worthless of his fellow-creatures ! 

The reader is worthless for liking a book of which all the 
characters are worthless, except two, which are offered to his 
respectful admiration ; and of these two the author does not 
respect one, but struggles not to laugh in his face ; whilst he 
apparently speaks of another in a tone of religious reverence, 
because the lady is a countess, and because he (the author) is 


I 12 


PREJ^ACE ro THE SECOND EDITION: 


a sneak. So reader, author, characters, are rogues all. Be 
there any honest men left, Hal ? About Printing-house Square, 
mayhap you may light on an honest man, a squeamish man, a 
proper moral man, a man that shall talk you Latin by the half- 
column if you will but hear him. 

And what a style it is, that great man’s. What hoighth 
of foine language entoirely ! How he can discoorse you in 
English for all the world as if it was Latin! For instance, 
suppose you and I had to announce the important news that 
some writers published what are called Christmas books ; that 
Christmas books are so called because they are published at 
Christmas : and that the purpose of the author is to try and 
amuse people. Suppose, 1 say, we ‘had, by the sheer force of 
intellect, or by other means of observation or information, 
discovered these great truths, we should have announced them 
in so many words. And there it is that the difference lies 
between a great writer and a poor one ; and we may see how 
an inferior man may fling a chance away. How does my 
friend of the Times put these propositions ? “ It has been 

customary,” says he, “ of late years for the purveyors of 
amusing literature to put forth certain opuscules, denominated 
Christmas books, with the ostensible intention of swelling the 
tide of exhilaration, or other expansive emotions, incident upon 
the exodus of the old or the inauguration of the new year.” 
That is something like a sentence ; not a word scarcely but’s in 
Latin, and the longest and handsomest out of the whole 
dictionary. That is proper economy — as you see a buck from 
Holywell Street put every pinchbeck pin, ring, and chain which 
he possesses about his shirt, hands, and waistcoat, and then go 
and cut a dash in the Park, or swagger with his order to the 
theatre. It costs him no more to wear all his ornaments about 
his distinguished person than to leave them at home. If you can 
be a swell at a cheap rate, why not ? And I protest, for my 
part, I had no idea what I was really about in writing and sub- 
mitting my little book for sale, until my friend the critic, 
looking at the article, and examining it with the eyes of a con- 
noisseur, pronounced that what I had fancied simply to be a 
book was in fact “ an opuscule denominated so-and-so, and 
ostensibly intended to swell the tide of expansive emotion inci- 
dent upon the inauguration of the new year.” I can hardly 
believe as much even now — so little do we know what we really 
are after, until men of genius come and interpret. 

And besides the ostensible intention, the reader will per- 
ceive that my judge has discovered another latent motive, which 


AjV ess a y ON THUNDER AND SMALL BEER. 


I had “ locked up in my own breast.” The sly rogue ! (if we 
may so speak of the court.) There is no keeping anything 
from him ; and this truth, like the rest, has come out, and is all 
over England by this time. Oh, that all England, which has 
bought the judge’s charge, would purchase the prisoner’s plea 
in mitigation ! “ Oh, that any muse should be set on a high 

stool,” says the bench, “ to cast up accounts and balance a 
ledger ! Yet so it is ; and the popular author finds it con- 
venient to fill up the declared deficit by the emission of 
Christmas books — a kind of assignats that bear the stamp of 
their origin in the vacuity of the writer’s exchequer.” There is 
a trope for you ! You rascal, you wrote because you wanted 
money ! His lordship has found out what you were at, and 
that there is a deficit in your till. But he goes on to say that 
we poor devils are to be pitied in our necessity ; and that these 
compositions are no more to be taken as examples of our merits 
than the verses which the dustman leaves at his lordship’s 
door, “ as a provocative of the expected annual gratuity,” are 
to be considered as measuring his, the scavenger’s valuable 
services — nevertheless the author’s and the scavenger’s “ effu- 
sions may fairly be classed, for their intrinsic worth, no less 
than their ultimate purport.” 

Heaven bless his lordship on the bench — What a gentle- 
man-like badinage he has, and what a charming and playful wit 
always at hand ! What a sense he has for a simile, or what 
Mrs. Malaprop calls an odorous comparison, and how gracefully 
he conducts it to “ its ultimate purport.” A gentleman writing 
a poor little book is a scavenger asking for a Christmas-box ! 

As I try this small beer which has called down such a deal 
of thunder, I can’t help thinking that it is not Jove who has 
interfered (the case was scarce worthy of his divine vindictive- 
ness) ; but the thunderer’s man, Jupiter Jeames, taking his 
master’s place, adopting his manner, and trying to dazzle and 
roar like his awful employer. That figure of the dustman has 
hardly been flung from heaven : that “ ultimate purport ” is a 
subject which the Immortal would hardly handle. Well, well \ 
let us allow that the book is not worthy of such a polite 
critic — that the beer is not strong enough for a gentleman who 
has taste and experience in beer. 

That opinion no man can ask his honor to alter ; but 
(the beer being the question), why make unpleasant allusions to 
the Gazette, and hint at the probable bankruptcy of the brewer? 
Why twit me with my poverty ; and what can the Times' critic 


PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION, 


114 

know about the vacuity of my exchequer ? Did he ever lend me 
any money ? Does he not himself write for money ? (and who 
would grudge it to such a polite and generous and learned 
author ?) If he finds no disgrace in being paid, why should I ? 
If he has ever been poor, why should he joke at my empty 
exchequer ? Of course such a genius is paid for his work : with 
such neat logic, such a pure style, such a charming poetical 
turn of phrase, of course a critic gets money. Why, a man who 
can say of a Christmas book that “ it is an opuscule denomi- 
nated so and so, and ostensibly intended to swell the tide of 
expansive emotion incident upon the exodus of the old year,” 
must evidently have had immense sums and care expended on 
his early education, and deserves a splendid return. You 
can’t go into the market, and get scholarship like that^ without 
paying for it : even the flogging that such a writer must have in 
early youth (if he was at a public school where the rods were 
paid for), must have cost his parents a good sum. Where 
would you find any but an accomplished classical scholar to 
compare the books of the present (or indeed any other) writer 
to “ sardonic divings after the pearl of truth, whose lustre is 
eclipsed in the display of the diseased oyster ; ” mere Billings- 
gate doesn’t turn out oysters like these ; they are of the Lucrine 
lake : — this satirist has pickled his rods in Latin brine. Fancy, 
not merely a diver, but a sardonic diver : and the expression 
of his confounded countenance on discovering not only a pearl, 
but an eclipsed pearl, which was in a diseased oyster! I say 
it is only by an uncommon and happy combination of taste, 
genius, and industry, that a man can arrive at uttering such 
sentiments in such fine language, — that such a man ought to be 
well paid, as I have no doubt he is, and that he is worthily 
employed to write literary articles, in large type, in the leading 
journal of Europe. Don’t we want men of eminence and polite 
learning to sit on the literary bench, and to direct the public 
opinion ? 

But when this profound scholar compares me to a scavenger 
who leaves a copy of verses at his door and begs for a 
Christmas-box, I must again cry out and say, “ My dear sir, it 
is true your simile is offensive, but can you make it out ^ Are 
you not hasty in your figures and allusions } ” If I might give a 
hint to so consummate a rhetorician you should be more care- 
ful in making your figures figures, and your similes like : for 
instance, when you talk of a book “ swelling the tide of exhila- 
ration incident to the inauguration of the new year,” or of a 
book “ bearing the stamps of its origin in vacuity,” &c. — or of 


AN ESS A Y ON THUNDER AND SMALL BEER. 1 15 

a man diving sardonically ; or of a pearl eclipsed in the dis- 
play of a diseased oyster — there are some people who will not 
apprehend your meaning : some will doubt whether you had a 
meaning : some even will question your great powers, and say, 
“ Is this man to be a critic in a newspaper, which knows what 
English, and Latin too, and what sense and scholarship, are ? ” 
I don’t quarrel with you — I take for granted your wit and 
learning, your modesty and benevolence — but why scavenger — 
J upiter J eames — why scavenger ? A gentleman, whose biography 
the Exammer was fond of quoting before it took its present 
serious and orthodox turn, was pursued by an outraged wife to 
the very last stage of his existence with an appeal almost as 
pathetic — Ah, sir, why scavenger ? 

How can I be like a dustman that rings for a .Christmas- 
box at your hall-door ? I never was there in my life. I never 
left at your door a copy of verses provocative of an annual 
gratuity, as your noble honor styles it. Who are you ? If you 
are the man I take you to be, it must have been you who asked 
the publisher for my book, and not I who sent it in, and begged 
a gratuity of your worship. You abused me out of the Times' 
window ; but if ever your noble honor sent me a gratuity out 
of your own door, may I never drive another dust-cart. “ Pro- 
vocative of a gratuity ! ” O splendid swell ! How much was it 
your worship sent out to me by the footman ? Every farthing 
you have paid I will restore to your lordship, and I swear I 
shall not be a halfpenny the poorer. 

As before, and on similar seasons and occasions, I have 
compared myself to a person following a not dissimilar calling : 
let me suppose now, for a minute, that I am a writer of a Christ- 
mas farce, who sits in the pit, and sees the performance of 
his own piece. There comes applause, hissing, yawning, 
laughter, as may be : but the loudest critic of all is our friend 
the cheap buck, who sits yonder and makes his remarks, so 
that all the audience may hear. “ This a farce ! ” says Beau 
Tibbs •- “ demmy ! it’s the work of a poor devil who writes for 
money, — confound his vulgarity ! This a farce ! Why isn’t it 
a tragedy, or a comedy, or an epic poem, stap my vitals t This 
a farce indeed ! It’s a feller as sends round his ’at, and 
appeals to charity. Let’s ’ave our money back again, I say.’* 
And he swaggers off ; — and you find the fellow came with an 
author’s order. 

But if, in spite of Tibbs, our “kyind friends,” &c., &c., &c. 
— if the little farce, which was meant to amuse Christmas (or 
what my classical friend calls Exodus), is asked for, even up to 


Ii6 PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION. 

Twelfth Night, — shall the publisher stop because Tibbs is dis- 
satisfied ? Whenever that capitalist calls to get his money back 
he may see the letter from the respected publisher, inform- 
ing the author that all the copies are sold, and that there are 
demands for a new edition. Up with the curtain, then ! Vivat 
Regina ! and no money returned, except the llmes^ “ gratuity ! ” 

M. A. TITMARSH, 


January 5, 1851, 


THE KICKLEBURYS 

ON THE RHINE. 


The cabman, when he brought us to the wharf, and made 
his usual charge of six times his legal fare, before the settle- 
ment of which he pretended to refuse the privilege of an exeat 
regno to our luggage, glared like a disappointed fiend when 
Lankin, calling up the faithful Hutchison, his clerk, who was 
in attendance, said to him, “ Hutchison, you will pay this man. 
My name is Serjeant Lankin, my chambers are in Pump Court. 
My clerk will settle with you, sir.” The cabman trembled ; we 
stepped on board ; our lightsome luggage was speedily whisked 
away by the crew ; our berths had been secured by the previous 
agency of Hutchison ; and a couple of tickets, on which were 
written, “ Mr. Serjeant Lankin,” “ Mr. Titmarsh,” (Lankin’s, 
by the way, incomparably the best and comfortablest sleeping 
place,) were pinned on two of the curtains of the beds in a side 
cabin when we descended. 

Who was on board ? There were Jews, with Sunday papers 
and fruit ; there were couriers and servants straggling about ; 
there were those bearded foreign visitors of England, who 
always seem to decline to shave or wash themselves on the day 
of a voyage, and, on the eve of quitting our country, appear in- 
clined to carry away as much as possible of its soil on their 
hands and linen : there were parties already cozily established 
on deck under the awning ; and steady-going travellers for’ard, 
smoking already the pleasant morning cigar, and watching tha 
phenomena of departure. 

The bell rings : they leave off bawling, Anybody else for 
the shore "i ” The last grape and Bell's Life merchant has 

(117) 


Ii8 TITE KICKLEBURYS ON THE RHINE. 

scuffled over the plank : the Johns of the departing nobility and 
gentry line the brink of the quay, and touch their hats : Hutchi- 
son touches his hat to me — to me^ heaven bless him ! I turn 
round inexpressibly affected and delighted, and whom do I see 
but Captain Hicks ! 

“ Hallo ! you here ? ” says Hicks, in a tone which seems ta 
mean, “ Confound you, you are everywhere.” 

Hicks is one of those young men who seem to be everywhere 
a great deal too often. 

How are they always getting leave from their regiments 'i 
If they are not wanted in this country, (as wanted they cannot 
be, for you see them sprawling over the railing in Rotten Row 
all day, and shaking their heels at every ball in town,) — if they 
are not wanted in this country, I say, why the deuce are they 
not sent off to India, or to Demerara, or to Sierra Leone, by 
Jove ? — the farther the better ; and I should wish a good un- 
wholesome climate to try ’em, and make ’em hardy. Here is 
this Hicks, then — Captain Launcelot Hicks, if you please — 
whose life is nothing but breakfast, smoking, riding-school, 
billiards, mess, polking, billiards, and smoking again, apd da 
capo — pulling down his mustaches, and going to take a tour 
after the immense labors of the season. 

“ How do you do. Captain Hicks ? ” I say. “ Where are you 
going?” 

“ Oh, I am going to the Whine,” says Hicks ; “ evewybody 
goes to the Whine.” The Whine indeed ! I dare say he can no 
more spell properly than he can speak. 

“ Who is on board — anybody ? ” I ask, with the air of a man 
of fashion. “ To whom does that immense pile of luggage be- 
long — under charge of the lady’s-maid, the courier, and the 
British footman ? A large white K is painted on all the boxes.” 

“ How the deuce should / know ? ” says Hicks, looking, as 
I fancy, both red and angry, and strutting off with his great 
cavalry lurch and swagger : whilst my friend the Serjeant looks 
at him lost in admiration, and surveys his shining little boots, 
his chains and breloques, his whiskers and ambrosial mus- 
taches, his gloves and other dandifications, with a pleased won- 
der ; as the ladies of the Sultan’s harem surveyed the great 
Lady from Park Lane who paid them a visit ; or the simple 
subjects of Montezuma looked at one of Cortes’s heavy dragoons. 

“ That must be a marquis at least,” whispers Lankin, who 
consults me on points of society, and is pleased to have a great 
opinion of my experience. 

I burst out in a scornful laugh. “ That I say; “he is a 


THE KICKLEBURYS ON THE RHINE 


1 19 

Captain of dragoons, and his father is an attorney in Bedford 
Row. The whiskers of a roturier, my good Lankin, grow as 
long as the beard of a Plantagenet. It don’t require much 
noble blood to learn the polka. If you were younger, Lankin, 
we might go for a shilling a night, and dance every evening at 
M. Laurent’s Casino, and skip about in a little time as well as 
that fellow. Only we despise that kind of thing you know, — 
only we’re too grave, and too steady.” 

“ And too fat,” whispers Lankin, with a laugh. 

“ Speak for yourself, you maypole,” says I. “ If you can’t 
dance yourself, people can dance round you — put a wreath of 
flowers upon your old poll, stick you up in a village green, and 
so make use of you.” 

“I should gladly be turned into anything so pleasant,” 
Lankin answers ; “ and so, at least, get a chance of seeing a 
pretty girl now and then. They don’t show in Pump Court or 
at the University Club, where I dine. You are a lucky fellow, 
Titmarsh, and go about in the world. As for me, /never ” 

“ And the judges’ wives, you rogue ? ” I say. ‘‘ Well, no 
man is satisfied ; and the only reason I have to be angry with 
the captain yonder is, that, the other night at Mrs. Perkins’s, 
being in conversation with a charming young creature — who 
knows all my favorite passages in Tennyson, and takes a most 
delightful little line of opposition in the Church controversy — 
just as we were in the very closest, dearest, pleasantest part of 
the talk, comes up young Hotspur yonder, and whisks her 
away in a polka. What have you and I to do with polkas, 
Lankin ? He took her down to supper — what have you and I 
to do with suppers ? ” 

‘‘ Our duty is to leave them alone,” said the philosophical 
Serjeant. “ And now about breakfast — shall we have some .? ” 
And as he spoke, a savoiy little procession of stewards and 
stewards’ boys, with drab tin dish-covers, passed from the 
caboose, and descended the stairs to the cabin. The vessel 
had passed Greenwich by this time, and had worked its way 
out of the mast-forest which guards the approaches of our City. 

The owners of those innumerable boxes, bags, oil-skins, 
guitar-cases, whereon the letter K was engraved, appeared to 
be three ladies, with a slim gentleman of two or three and thirty, 
who was probably the husband of one of them. He had num- 
berless shawls under his arm and guardianship. He had a 
strap full of Murray’s Handbooks and Continental Guides in 
his keeping ; and a little collection of parasols and umbrellas, 


120 


THE KICKLEBURYS ON THE RHINE. 


bound together, and to be carried in state before the chief of 
the party, like tlie lictor’s fasces before the consul. 

The chief of the party was evidently the stout lady. One 
parasol being left free, she waved it about, and commanded the 
luggage and the menials to and fro. “ Horace, we will sit 
there,” she exclaimed, pointing to a comfortable place on the 
deck. Horace went and placed the shawls and the Guide-books. 
“ Hirsch, avy vou conty les bagages ? tront settmorso ongtoo ? ” 
The German courier said, “ Oui, miladi,” and bowed a rather 
sulky assent. “ Bowman, you will see that Finch is comfort- 
able, and send her to me.” The gigantic Bowman, a gentleman 
in an undress uniform, with very large and splendid armorial 
buttons, and with traces of the powder of the season still lin- 
gering in his hair, bows, and speeds upon my lady’s errand. 

I recognize Hirsdi, a well-known face upon the European 
high-road, where he has travelled with many acquaintances. 
With whom is he making the tour now ? — Mr. Hirsch is acting 
as courier to Mr. and Mrs. Horace Milliken. They have not 
been married many months, and they are travelling, Hirsch 
says, with a contraction of his bushy eyebrows, with miladi, Mrs. 
Milliken’s mamma. “ And who is her ladyship ? ” Hirsch’s 
brow contracts into deeper furrows. “ It is Miladi Giggle- 
bury,” he says, “ Mr. Didmarsh. Berhabs you know her.” He 
scowls round at her, as she call out loudly, “ Hirsch, Hirsch ! ” 
and obeys that summons. 

It is the great Lady Kicklebury of Pocklington Square, 
about whom I remember Mrs. Perkins made so much ado at 
her last ball ; and whom old Perkins conducted to supper. 
When Sir Thomas Kicklebury died (he was one of the first 
tenants of the square), who does not remember the scutcheon 
with the coronet with two balls, that flamed over No. 36 ? Her 
son was at Eton then, and has subsequently taken an honorary 
degree at Oxford, and been an ornament of “ Platt’s ” and the 
“ Oswestry Club.” He fled into St. James’s from the great 
house in Pocklington Square, and from St. James’s to Italy and 
the Mediterranean, where he has been for some time in a 
wholesome exile. Her eldest daughter’s marriage with Lord 
Roughhead was talked about last year ; but Lord Roughhead, it 
is known, married Miss Brent ; and Horace Milliken, very much 
to his surprise, found himself the affianced husband of Miss 
Lavinia Kicklebury, after an agitating evening at Lady Polki- 
more’s, when Miss Lavinia feeling herself faint, went out on to 
the leads (the terrace, Lady Polkimore will call it). On the arm 


THE KICKLEBURYS ON THE RHINE. 


121 


of Mr. Milliken". They were married in January: it’s not a 
bad match for Miss K. Lady Kicklebury goes and stops for 
six months of the year at Pigeoncot with her daughter and son- 
in-law ; and now that they are come abroad, she comes too. 
She must be with Lavinia under the present circumstances. 

When I am arm-in-arm, I tell this story glibly off to Lankin, 
who is astonished at my knowledge of the world, and says, 
“ Why, Titmarsh, you know everything.” 

“ I do know a few things, Lankin, my boy,” is my answer. 
“ A man don 't live in society, and pretty good society, let me tell 
you, for nothing.” 

The fact is, that all the above details are known to almost 
any man in our neighborhood. Lady Kicklebury does not 
meet with us much, and has greater folks than we can pretend 
to be at her parties. But we know about them. She’ll con- 
descend to come to Perkins’s, with whose firm she banks ; and 
she may overdraw her accoufit : but of that, of course, I know 
nothing. 

When Lankin and I go down stairs to breakfast, we find, if not 
the best, at least the most conspicuous places in occupation of 
Lady Kicklebury’s party, and the hulking London footman 
making a darkness in the cabin as he stoops through it bearing 
cups and plates to his employers. 

[Why do they always put mud into coffee on board steam- 
ers ? Why does the tea generally taste of boiled boots Why 
is the milk scarce and thin .? And why do they have those 
bleeding legs of boiled mutton for dinner? I ask why? In 
the steamers of other nations you are well fed. Is it impossible 
that Britannia, who confessedly rules the waves, should attend 
to the victuals a little, and that meat should be well cooked 
under a Union Jack ? I just put in this question, this most in- 
teresting question, in a momentous parenthesis, and resume 
the tale.] 

When Lankin and I descend to the cabin, then, the tables 
are full of gobbling people ; and, though there do seem to be a 
couple of places near Lady Kicklebury, immediately she sees 
our eyes directed to the inviting gap, she slides out, and with 
her ample robe covers even more than that large space to which 
by art and nature she is entitled, and calling out, “ Horace, 
Horace I ” and nodding, and winking, and pointing, she 
causes her son-in-law to extend the wing on his side. We are 
cut of that chance of a breakfast. We shall have the tea at its 

9 


12 2 


THE KICKLEBURYS OH THE RHINE. 


third water, and those two damp, black mutton-chops, which 
nobody else will take, will fall to our cold share. 

At this minute a voice, clear and sweet, from a tall lady in 
a black veil, says, “ Mr. Titmarsh,” and I start and murmur an 
ejaculation of respectful surprise, as I recognize no less a per- 
son than the Right Honourable the Countess of Knightsbridge, 
taking her tea, breaking up little bits of toast with her slim 
fingers, and sitting between a Belgian horse-dealer and a Ger- 
man violoncello-player who has a conge after the opera — like 
any other mortal. 

I whisper her ladyship’s name to Lankin. The Serjeant 
looks towards her with curiosity and awe. Even he, in his 
Pump Court solitudes, has heard of that star of fashion — that 
admired amongst men and even women — that Diana severe 
yet simple, the accomplished Aurelia of Knightsbridge. Her 
husband has but a small share of her qualities. How should 
he? The turf and fox-chase are his delights — the smoking- 
room at the “ Traveller’s ” — nay, shall we say it? — the illumin- 
ated arcades of “ Vauxhall,” and the gambols of the dishevelled 
Terpsichore. Knightsbridge had his faults — ah ! even the peer- 
age of England is not exempt from them. With Diana for his 
wife, he flies the halls where she sits severe and serene, and is 
to be found (shrouded in smoke, ’tis true,) in those caves where 
the contrite chimney-sweep sings his terrible death-chant, or 
the Bacchanalian judge administers a satiric law. Lord 
Knightsbridge has his faults, then ; but he has the gout at 
Rougetnoirbourg, and thither his wife is hastening to minister 
to him. 

“ I have done,” says Lady Knightsbridge, with a gentle 
bow, as she rises; “you may have this place, Mr. Titmarsh; 
and I am sorry my breakfast is over : I should have prolonged 
it had I thought that you were coming to sit by me. Thank 
you — my glove.” (Such an absurd little glove, by the way.) 
“ We shall meet on the deck when you have done.” 

Atid she moves away with an august curtesy. T can’t tell 
how it is or what it is, in that lady ; but she says, “ H 'w do you 
do ? ” as nobody else knows how to say it. In all her actions, 
motions, thoughts, I would wager there is the same caim grace 
and harmony. She is not very handsome, being very thin and 
rather sad-looking. She is not very witty, being only up to the 
conversation, whatever it may be ; and yet, if she were in black 
serge, I think one could not help seeing that she was a Prin- 
cess, and Serene Highness ; and if she were a hundred years 
old, she could not be but beautiful. I saw her performing her 


THE ICICKLEBURYS ON THE RHINE, 


123 


devotions in Antwerp Cathedral, and forgot to look at anything 
else there ; — so calm and pure, such a sainted figure hers 
seemed. 

When this great lady did the present writer the honor to 
shake his hand (I had the honor to teach writing and the rudi 
ments of Latin to the young and intelligent Lord Viscount Pim- 
lico), there seemed to be a commotion in the Kicklebury party 
— heads were nodded together, and turned towards Lady 
Knightsbrioge ; in whose honor, when Lady Kicklebury had 
sufficiently reconnoitred her with her eye-glass, the baronet’s 
lady rose and swept a reverential curtsey, backing until she 
fell up against the cushions at the stern of the boat. Lady 
Knightsbridge did not see this salute, for she did not acknowl- 
edge it, but walked away slimly (she seems to glide in and out 
of the room), and disappeared up the stair to the deck. 

Lankin and I took our places, the horse-dealer making 
room for us ; and I could not help looking, with a little air of 
triumph, over to the Kicklebury faction, as much as to say, 
“ You fine folks, with your large footman and supercilious airs, 
see what we can do.” 

As I looked — smiling, and nodding, and laughing at me in 
a knowing, pretty way, and then leaning to mamma as if in 
explanation, what face should I see but that of the young lady 
at Mrs. Perkins’s, with whom I had had that pleasant conver- 
sation which had been interrupted by the demand of Captain 
Hicks for a dance ? So, then, that was Miss Kicklebury, about 
whom Miss Perkins, my young friend, has so often spoken to 
me (the young ladies were in conversation when I had the 
happiness of joining them ; and Miss P. went away presently, 
to look to her guests) — that is Miss Fanny Kicklebury. 

A sudden pang shot athwart my bosom — Lankin might 
have perceived it, but the honest Serjeant was so awe-stricken 
by his late interview with the Countess of Knightsbridge, that 
Ins mind was unfit to grapple with other subjects — a pang of 
feeling (which I concealed under the grin and graceful bow 
wherewith Miss Fanny’s salutations were acknowledged) tore 
my heart-strings — as I thought of — I need not say— of Hicks. 

He had danced with her, he had supped with her — he was 
here, on board the boat. Where was that dragoon ? I looked 
round for him. In quite a far corner, — but so that he could 
command the Kicklebury party, I thought, — he was eating his 
breakfast, the great healthy oaf, and consuming one broiled egg 
after another. 

In the course of the afternoon, all parties, as it may be 


124 


THE KICKLEBURYS ON THE RHINE. 


supposed, emerged upon deck again, and Miss Fanny and her 
mamma began walking the quarter-deck with a quick pace, like 
a couple of post-captains. When Miss Fanny saw me, she 
stopped and smiled, and recognized the gentleman who had 
amused her so at Mrs. Perkins’s. — What a dear sweet creature 
Eliza Perkins was ! They had been at school together. She 
was going to write to Eliza everything that happened on the 
voyage. 

“ Everything “i ” I said, in my particularly sarcastic manner. 

“ Well, everything that was worth telling. There was a 
great number of things that were very stupid, and of people 
that were very stupid. Everything that you say, Mr. Titmarsh, 
I am sure I may put down. You have seen Mr. Titmarsh’s 
funny books, mamma ” 

Mamma said she had heard — she had no doubt they were 
very amusing. “ Was not that — ahem — Lady Knightsbridge, 
to whom I saw you speaking, sir ? ” 

“ Yes ; she is going to nurse Lord Knightsbridge, who has 
the gout at Rougetnoirbourg.” 

“ Indeed ! how very fortunate ! what an extraordinary coin- 
cidence ! We are going too,” said Lady Kicklebury. 

I remarked “ that everybody was going to Rougetnoirbourg 
this year ; and I heard of two gentlemen — Count Carambole 
and Colonel Cannon — who had been obliged to sleep there on 
a billiard-table for want of a bed.” 

“ My son Kicklebuiy^ — are you acquainted with Sir Thomas 
Kicklebury ? ” her ladyship said, with great stateliness — “ is at 
Noirbourg, and will take lodgings for us. The springs are 
particularly recommended for my daughter, Mrs. Milliken ; and, 
at great personal sacrifice, I am going thither myself : but what 
will not a mother do, Mr. Titmarsh ? Did I understand you to 
say that you have the — the entree at Knightsbridge House ? 
The parties are not what they used to be, I am told. Not that 
I have any knowledge. I am but a poor country baronet’s 
widow, Mr. Titmarsh ; though the Kickleburys date from 
Henr}' III., and my family is not of the most modern in the 
country. You have heard of General Guff, my father, perhaps ? 
aide-de-camp to the Duke of York, and wounded by his Royal 
Highness’s side at the bombardment of Valenciennes. We 
move in our oivn sphere.^^ 

“ Mrs. Perkins is a very kind creature,” I said, “ and it 
was a very pleasant ball. Did you not think so. Miss Kickle- 
bury ? ” 

“ I thought it odious,” said Miss Fanny. “ I mean, it wai 


THE KICKLEBURYS ON THE RHINE. 


pleasant until that — that stupid man — what was his nanje ? — • 
came and took me away to dance with him.” 

“What ! don’t you care for a red coat and mustaches? ” I 
asked. 

“ I adore genius, Mr. Titmarsh,” said the young lady, with 
a most killing look of her beautiful blue eyes, “ and I have 
every one of your works by heart — all, except the last, which 
I can’t endure. I think it’s wicked, positively wicked — My 
darling Scott ! — how can you ? And are you going to make a 
Christmas-book this year ? ” 

“ Shall I tell you about it ? ” 

“ Oh, do tell us about it,” said the lively, charming creature, 
clapping her hands : and we began to talk, being near Lavinia 
(Mrs. Milliken) and her husband, who was ceaselessly occupied 
in fetching and carrying books, biscuits, pillows and cloaks, 
scent-bottles, the Italian greyhound, and the thousand and one 
necessities of the pale and interesting bride. Oh, how she did 
fidget ! how she did grumble ! how she altered and twisted her 
position ! and how she did make poor Milliken trot ! 

After Miss Fanny and I had talked, and I had told her my 
plan, which she pronounced to be delightful, she continued ; — • 
“ I never was so provoked in my life, Mr. Titmarsh, as when 
that odious man came and interrupted that dear delightful 
conversation.” 

“ On your word ? The odious man is on board the boat : 
I see him smoking just by the funnel yonder, look ! and look- 
ing at us.” 

“He is very stupid,” said Fanny; “and all that I adore is 
intellect, dear Mr. Titmarsh.” 

“ But why is he on board ? ” said I, with a fi7i sourire. 

“ Why is he on board ? Why is everybody on board ? 
How do we meet ? (and oh, how glad I am to meet you again !) 
You don’t suppose that I know how the horrid man came 
here?” 

“ Eh ! he may be fascinated by a pair of blue eyes. Miss 
Fanny ! Others have been so,” I said. 

“ Don’t be cruel to a poor girl, you wicked, satirical crea- 
ture,” she said. “ I think Captain Hicks odious — there ! and 
I was quite angry when I saw him on the boat. Mamma does 
not know him, and she was so angry with me for dancing with 
him that night : though there was nobody of any particular 
mark at poor dear Mrs. Perkins’s — that is, except you^ Mr. 
Titmarsh.” 

“And I am not a dancing man,” I said, with a sigh. 


126 


THE KICKLEBURYS ON THE RHINE. 


“ I hate dancing men ; they can do nothing but dance.” 

“ O yes, they can. Some of them can smoke, and some 
can ride, and some can even spell very well.” 

“ You wicked, satirical person. I’m quite afraid of you ! ” 

“ And some of them call the Rhine the ‘ Whine,’ ” I said, 
giving an admirable imitation of poor Hicks’s drawling manner. 

Fanny looked hard at me, with a peculiar expression on her 
face. At last she laughed. “ Oh, you wicked, wicked man,” 
she said, “ what a capital mimic you are, and so full of clever- 
ness ! Do bring up Captain Hicks — isn’t that his name ? — and 
trot him out for us. Bring him up, and introduce him to 
mamma : do now, go ! ” 

Mamma, in the mean while, had waited her time, and was 
just going to step down the cabin stairs as Lady Knightsbridge 
ascended from them. To draw back, to make a most profound 
curtsey, to exclaim, “ Lady Knightsbridge ! I have had the 
honor of seeing your ladyship at — hum — hum — hum ” (this 
word I could not catch) — “ House,” — all these feats were per- 
formed by Lady Kicklebury in one instant, and acknowledged 
with the usual calmness by the younger lady. 

“ And may I hope,” continues Lady Kicklebury, “ that that 
Host beautiful of all children — a mother may say so — that Lord 
Pimlico has recovered his hooping-cough ? We were so anx- 
ious about him. Our medical attendant is Mr. Topham, and 
he used to come from Knightsbridge House to Pocklington 
Square, often and often. I am interested about the hooping, 
cough. My own dear boy had it most severely ; that dear girl, 
my eldest daughter, whom you see stretched on the bench — 
she is in a very delicate state, and only lately married — not 
such a match as I could have wished ; but Mr. Milliken is of a 
good family, distantly related to your ladyship’s. A Milliken, 
in George the Third’s reign, married a Baltimore, and the Bal- 
timores, I think, are your first-cousins. They married this year, 
and Lavinia is so fond of me, that she can’t part with me, and 
I have come abroad just to please her. We are going to Noir- 
bourg. I think I heard from my son that Lord Knightsbridge 
was at Noirbourg.” 

“ I believe I have had the pleasure of seeing Sir Thomas 
Kicklebury at Knightsbridge House,” Lady Knightsbridge 
said, with something of sadness. 

Indeed ! ” and Kicklebury had never told her ! He laughed 
at her when she talked about great people : he told her all 
sorts of ridiculous stories when upon this theme. But, at any 


THE KICKLEBURYS ON THE RHINE. 


127 


rate, the acquaintance was made : Lady Kicklebury would not 
leave Lady Knightsbridge ; and, even in the throes of sea- 
sickness, and the secret recesses of the cabin, would talk to her 
about the world. Lord Pimlico, and her father. General Guff, 
late aide-de-camp to the Duke of York. 

That those throes of sickness ensued, I need not say. A 
short time after passing Ramsgate, Serjeant Lankin, who had 
been exceedingly gay and satirical — (in his calm way , he 
quotes Horace, my favorite bits as an author, to myself, and 
has a quiet snigger, and, so to speak, amontillado flavor, ex- 
ceedingly pleasant) — Lankin, with a rueful and livid counte- 
nance, descended into his berth, in the which that six foot ol 
Serjeant packed himself I don’t know how. 

When Lady Knightsbridge went down, down with Kickle- 
bury. Milliken and his wife stayed, and were ill together or 
deck. A palm of glory ought to be awarded to that man foi 
his angelic patience, energy, and suffering. It was he who 
went for Mrs. Milliken’s maid, who wouldn’t come to her mis* 
tress ; it was he, the shyest of men, who stormed the ladies’ 
cabin — that maritime harem — in order to get her mother’s 
bottle of salts ; it was he who went for the brandy-and-water, 
and begged, and prayed, and besought his adored Lavinia to 
taste a leetle drop. Lavinia’s reply was, “ Don’t — go away — ■ 
don’t tease, Horace,” and so forth. And, when not wanted, 
the gentle creature subsided on the bench, by his wife’s feet, 
and was sick in silence. 

[Afem — In married life, it seems to me, that it is almost 
always Milliken and wife, or just the contrary. The angels 
minister to the tyrants ; or the gentle henpecked husband 
cowers before the superior partlet. If ever I marry, I know 
the sort of woman / will choose ; and I won’t try her temper by 
over-indulgence, and destroy her fine qualities by a ruinous 
subserviency to her wishes.] 

Little Miss Fanny stayed on deck, as well as her sister, and 
looked at the stars of heaven as they began to shine there, and 
at the Foreland lights as we passed them. I would have talked 
with her ; I would have suggested images of poesy, and thoughts 
of beauty ; I would have whispered the word of sentiment — 
the delicate allusion — the breathing of the soul that longs to 
find a congenial heart — the sorrows and aspirations of the 
wounded spirit, stricken and sad, yet not ^ulle despairing ; still 
knowing that the hope-plant lurked in its crushed ruins — still 
able to gaze on the stars and the ocean, and love their blazing 
sheen, their boundless azure. I would, I say, have taken the 

9* 


128 


THE KICKLEBURYS ON THE RHINE. 


opportunity of that stilly night to lay bare to her the treasures 
of a heart that, I am happy to say, is young still ; but circum- 
stances forbade the frank outpouring of my poet soul : in a 
word, I was obliged to go and lie down on the flat of my back, 
and endeavor to control other emotions which struggled in my 
breast. 

Once, in the night-watches, I arose, and came on deck ; the 
vessel was not, methought, pitching much ; and yet — and yet 
Neptune was inexorable. The placid stars looked down, but 
they gave me no peace. Lavinia Milliken seemed asleep, and 
her Horace, in a death-like torpor, was huddled at her feet. 
Miss Fanny had quitted the larboard side of the ship, and had 
gone to starboard ; and I thought that there was a gentleman 
beside her ? but I could not see very clearly, and returned to the 
horrid crib, where Lankin was asleep, and the German fiddler 
underneath him was snoring like his own violoncello. 

In the morning we were all as brisk as bees. We were in 
the smooth waters of the lazy Scheldt. The stewards began 
preparing breakfast with that matutinal eagerness which they 
always show. The sleepers in the cabin were roused from their 
horse-hair couches by the stewards’ boys nudging, and pushing, 
and flapping table-cloths over them. I shaved and made a 
neat toilette, and came upon deck just as we lay off that little 
Dutch fort, which is, I dare say, described in “ Murray’s Guide- 
book,” and about which I had some rare banter with poor 
Hicks and Lady Kicklebury, whose sense of humor was cer- 
tainly not very keen. He had, somehow, joined her ladyship’s 
party, and they were looking at the fort, and its tri-colored flag 
— that floats familiar in Vandevelde’s pictures — and at the lazy 
shipping, and the tall roofs, and the dumpy church towers, and 
flat pastures, lying before us in a Cuyp-like haze. 

I am sorry to say, I told them the most awful fibs about 
that fort. How it had been defended by the Dutch patriot, 
Van Swammerdam, against the united forces of the Duke of 
Alva, and Marshal Turenne, whose leg was shot off as he was 
leading the last unsuccessful assault, and who turned round 
to his aide-de-camp and said, “ Allez dire au Premier Consul, 
que je meurs avec regret de ne pas avoir assez fait pour la 
France ! ” which gave Lady Kicklebury an opportunity to 
placer her story of the Duke of York, and the bombardment of 
Valenciennes ; and caused young Hicks to look at me in a 
puzzled and appealing manner and hint that I was “ chaffing.” 

“ Chaffing indeed ! ” says I, with a particularly arch eye- 
twinkle at Miss Fanny. “ I wouldn’t make fun otyou, Caotain 


THE KICKLEBURYS ON THE RHINE. 


129 

Hicks ! If you doubt my historical accuracy, look at the ‘ Bio- 
graphic Universelle.’ I say — look at the ‘ Biographic Univer- 
selle.’ ” 

He said, “O — ah — the ‘Biogwaphie Universelle ’ may be 
all vewy well, and that ; but I can never make out whether you 
are joking or not, somehow ; and I always fancy you are going 
to cawickachaw me. Ha ha ! ” And he laughed, the good- 
natured dragoon laughed, and fancied he had made a joke. 

1 entreated him not to be so severe upon me ; and again 
he said, “ Haw haw ! ” and told me, “ I musn’t expect to have 
it all my own way., and if I gave a hit, I must expect a Ptmch 
in return. Haw haw ! ” Oh, you honest young Hicks ! 

Everybody, indeed, was in high spirits. The fog cleared 
off, the sun shone, the ladies chatted and laughed, even Mrs. 
Milliken was in good humor (“ My wife is all intellect,” Milli- 
ken says, looking at her with admiration), and talked with us 
freely and gayly. She was kind enough to say that it was a 
great pleasure to meet with a literary and well-informed person 
— that one often lived with people that did not comprehend 
one. She asked if my companion, that tall gentleman — Mr. 
Serjeant Lankin, was he ? — was literary. And when I said 
that Lankin knew more Greek, and more Latin, and more law, 
and more history, and more everything, than all the passengers 
put together, she vouchsafed to look at him with interest, and 
enter into a conversation with my modest friend the Serjeant. 
Then it was that her adoring husband said “his Lavinia was 
all intellect ; •Lady Kicklebury saying that she was not a 
literary woman ; that in day few acquirements were requisite 
for the British female ; but that she knew the spirit of the age., 
and her duty as a mother, that “Lavinia and Fanny had 
had the best masters and the best education which money and 
constant maternal solicitude could impart.” If our matrons 
are virtuous, as they are, and it is Britain’s boast, permit me 
to say that they certainly know it. 

The conversation growing powerfully intellectual under 
Mrs. Milliken, poor Hicks naturally became uneasy, and put 
an end to literature by admiring the ladies’ head-dresses. 
“ Cab-heads, hoods, what do you call ’em ? he asked of Miss 
Kicklebury. Indeed, she and her sister wore a couple of 
those blue silk over-bonnets, which have lately become the 
fashion, and which I never should have mentioned but for the 
young lady’s reply. 

“Those hoods ! ” she said — “ we call those hoods Uglies J 
Captain Hicks.” 


130 


THE KICKLEBURYS ON THE RHINE. 


Oh, how pretty she looked as she said it ! The blue eyes 
looked up under the blue hood, so archly and gayly ; ever so 
many dimples began playing about her face ; her little voice 
rang so fresh and sweet, that a heart which has never loved a 
tree or flower but the vegetable in question was sure to perish 
— a heart worn down and sickened by repeated disappointment, 
mockery, faithlessness — a heart whereof despair is an ac* 
customed tenant, and in whose desolate and lonely depths 
dwells an abiding gloom, began to throb once more — began to 
beckon Hope from the window — began to admit sunshine — 

began to O Folly, Folly! O Fanny! O Miss K., how 

lovely you looked as vou said “ We call those hoods Uglies ! ” 
Ugly indeed ! 

This is a chronicle of feelings and characters, not of events 
and places, so much. All this time our vessel was making rapid 
way up the river, and we saw before us the slim towers of the 
noble cathedral of Antwerp soaring in the rosy sunshine. 
Lankin and I had agreed to go to the “Grand Laboureur,” on 
the Place de Meir. They give you a particular kind of jam-tarts 
there — called Nun’s tarts, I think — that I remember, these 
twenty years, as the very best tarts — as good as the tarts which 
we ate when we were boys. The “ Laboureur ” is a dear old 
quiet comfortable hotel ; and there is no man in England who 
likes a good dinner better than Lankin. 

“ What hotel do you go to } ” I asked of Lady Kicklebury. 

“ We go to the ‘ Saint Antoine ’ of course. ? Everybody goes 
to the ‘ Saint Antoine,’ ” her ladyship said. “ We propose to 
rest here ; to do the Rubens’s ; and to proceed to Cologne to- 
morrow. Horace, call Finch and Bowman ; and your courier, 
if he will have the condescension to wait upon me, will perhaps 
look to the baggage.” 

“ I think, Lankin,” said I, “ as everybody seems going to 
the ‘ Saint Antoine,’ we may as well go, and not spoil the 
party.” 

‘‘ I think ril go too,” says Hicks ; as if /le belonged to the 
party. 

And oh, it was a great sight when we landed, and at every 
place at which we paused afterwards, to see Hirsch over the 
Kicklebury baggage, and hear his polyglot maledictions at the 
porters ! If a man sometimes feels sad and lonely at his bachelor 
condition, if some feelings of envy pervade his heart, at seeing 
beauty on another’s arm, and kind eyes directed towards a 
happier mug than his own — at least there are som.e consolations 


THE KICKLEBURYS ON THE RHINE. 


31 


in travelling, when a fellow has but one little portmanteau or 
bag which he can easily shoulder, and thinks of the innumerable 
bags and trunks which the married man and the father drags 
after him. The married Briton on a tour is but a luggage 
overseer : his luggage is his morning thought, and his nightly 
terror. When he floats along the Rhine he has one eye on 
a ruin, and the other on his luggage. When he is in the 
railroad he is always thinking, or ordered by his wife to think, 
“ Is the luggage safe ? ” It clings round him. It never 
^eaves him (except when it does leave him, as a trunk or two 
will, and make him doubly miserable). His carpet-bags lie on 
his chest at night, and his wife’s forgotten bandbox haunts his 
turbid dreams. 

I think it was after she found that Lady Kicklebury proposed 
to go to the “ Grand Saint Antoine ” that Lady Knightsbridge 
put herself with her maid into a carriage and went to the other 
inn. We saw her at the cathedral, where she kept aloof from 
our party. Milliken went up the tower, and so did Miss Fanny. 
I am too old a traveller to mount up those immeasurable stairs, 
for the purpose of making myself dizzy by gazing upon a vast 
map of low countries stretched beneath me, and waited with 
Mrs. Milliken and her mother below. 

Wdien the tower-climbers descended, we asked Miss Fanny 
and her brother what they had seen. 

“We saw Captain Hicks up there,” remarked Milliken, 
“And I am very glad you didn’t come, Lavinia, my love. 
The excitement would have been too much for you, quite too 
much.” 

All this while Lady Kicklebury was looking at Fanny, and 
Fanny was holding her eyes down ; and I knew that between 
her and this poor Hicks there could be nothing serious, for she 
had laughed at him and mimicked him to me half a dozen times 
in the course of the day. 

We “ do the Rubens’s,” as Lady Kicklebury says ; we trudge 
from cathedral to picture-gallery, from church to church. We 
see the calm old city, with its towers and gables, the bourse, 
and the vast town-hall ; and I have the honor to give Lady 
Kicklebury my arm during these peregrinations, and to hear a 
hundred particulars regarding her ladyship’s life and family. 
How Milliken has been recently building at Pigeoncot ; how 
he will have two thousand a year more when his uncle dies ; 
how she had peremptorily to put a stop to the assiduities of 
that unprincipled young man. Lord Roughhead, whom Lavinia 
always detested, and who married Miss Brent out of sheer pique. 


132 


THE KICKLEBURYS ON THE RHINE. 


It was a great escape for her darling Lavinia.- Roughhead is 
a most wild and dissipated young man, one of Kicklebury’s 
Christchurch friends, of whom her son has too many, alas ! 
and she enters into many particulars respecting the conduct of 
Kicklebury — the unhappy boy’s smoking, his love of billiards, 
his fondness for the turf : she fears he has already injured his 
income, she fears he is even now playing at Noirbourg; she is 
going thither to wean him, if possible, from his companions and 
his gayeties — what may not a mother effect ? She only wrote 
to him the day before they left London to announce that she 
was marching on him with her family. He is in many respects 
like his poor father — the same openness and frankness, the 
same easy disposition : alas ! the same love of pleasure. But 
she had reformed the father, and will do her utmost to call back 
her dear misguided boy. She had an advantageous match for 
him in view — a lady not beautiful in person, it is true, but pos- 
sessed of every good principle, and a very, very handsome 
fortune. It was under pretence of flying from this lady that 
Kicklebury left town. But she knew better. 

I say young men will be young men, and sow their wild oats, 
and think to myself that the invasion of his mamma will be 
perhaps more surprising than pleasant to young Sir Thomas 
Kicklebury, and that she possibly talks about herself and her 
family, and her virtues and her daughters, a little too much : 
but she will make a confidant of me, and all the time we are 
doing the Rubens’s she is talking of the pictures at Kicklebury, 
of her portrait by Lawrence, pronounced to be his finest work, 
of Lavinia’s talent for drawing, and the expense of Fanny’s 
music-masters ; of her house in town (where she hopes to see 
me) ; of her parties which were stopped by the illness of her 
butler. She talks Kicklebury until I am sick. And oh. Miss 
Fanny, all of this I endure, like an old fool, for an occasional 
sight of your bright eyes and rosy face ! 

[Another parenthesis. — “ We hope to see you in town, Mr. 
Titmarsh.” Foolish mockery ! If all the people whom one has 
met afbroad, and who have said, “ We hope to meet you often 
in town,” had but made any the slightest efforts to realize their 
hopes by sending a simple line of invitation through the penny 
post, what an enormous dinner acquaintance one would have 
had ! But I mistrust people who say, “We hope to see you in 
town.”] 

Lankin comes in at the end of the day, just before dinner 


THE KICKLEBURYS ON THE RIHNE 


133 


time. He has paced the whole town by himself — church, tower, 
and fortifications, and Rubens, and all. He is full of Egmont 
and Alva. He is up to all the history of the siege, when 
Chassee defended, and the French attacked the place. After 
dinner we stroll along the quays ; and over the quiet cigar in 
the hotel court. Monsieur Lankin discourses about the Rubens 
pictures, in a way which shows that the learned Serjeant has 
an eye for pictorial beauty as well as other beauties in this world, 
and can rightly admire the vast energy, the prodigal genius, the 
royal splendor of the King of Antwerp. In the most modest 
way in the world he has remarked a student making clever 
sketches at the Museum, and has ordered a couple of copies 
from him of the famous Vandyke and the wondrous adoration 
of the Magi, “a greater picture,” says he, “than even the ca- 
thedral picture ; in which opinion those may agree who like.” 
He says he thinks Miss Kicklebury is a pretty little thing ; that 
all my swans are geese; and that as for that old woman, with 
her airs and graces, she is the most intolerable old nuisance in 
the world. There is much good judgment, but there is too 
much sardonic humor about Lankin. He cannot appreciate 
women properly. He is spoiled by being an old bachelor, and 
living in that dingy old Pump Court ; where, by the way, he has 
a cellar fit for a Pontiff. We go to rest ; they have given us 
humble lodgings high up in the building, which we accept like 
philosophers who travel with but a portmanteau a-piece. The 
Kickleburys have the grand suite, as becomes their dignity. 
Which, which of those twinkling lights illumines the chamber 
of Miss Fanny? 

Hicks is sitting in the court too, smoking his cigar. He 
and Lankin met in the fortifications. Lankin says he is a sen- 
sible fellow, and seems to know his profession. “ Every man 
can talk well about something,” the Serjeant says. “ And one 
man can about everything,” says I ; at which Lankin blushes; 
and \ve take our flaring tallow candles and go to bed. He has 
us up an hour before the starting time, and we have that period 
to admire Herr Oberkellner, who swaggers as becomes the 
Oberkellner of a house frequented by ambassadors ; who con- 
tradicts us to our faces, and whose own countenance is orna- 
mented with yesterday’s beard, of which, or of any part of his 
clothing, the graceful youth does not appear to have divested 
himself since last we left him. We recognize, somewhat dingy 
and faded, the elaborate shirt-front which appeared at yester. 
day’s banquet. Farewell, Herr Oberkellner ! May we never 
see your handsome countenance, washed or unwashed, shaven 
or unshorn, again ! 


^34 


THE KICKLEBLIRYS ON THE RHINE. 


Here come the ladies : “ Good-morning, Miss Fanny.” “ 1 
hope you slept well, Lady Kicklebury 1 A tremendous bill ? ” 
“ No wonder ; how can you expect otherwise, when you have 
such a bad dinner? ” Hearken to Hirsch’s comminations over 
the luggage ! Look at the honest Belgian soldiers, and that fat 
Freyschiitz on guard, his rifle in one hand, and the other hand 
in his pocket. Captain Hicks bursts into a laugh at the sight 
of the fat Freyschiitz, and says, “By Jove, Titmarsh, you must 
cawickachaw him.” And we take our seats at length and at 
leisure, and the railway trumpets blow, and (save for a brief 
halt) we never stop till night, trumpeting by green flats and pas- 
tures, by broad canals and old towns, through Lidge and 
Verviers, through Aix and Cologne, till we are landed at Bonn 
at nightfall. 

We all have supper, or tea — we have become pretty intimate 
— we look at the strangers’ book, as a matter of course, in the 
great room of the “Star Hotel.” Why, everybody is on the 
Rhine ! Here are the names of half one’s acquaintance. 

“ I see Lord and Lady Exborough are gone on,” says Lady 
Kicklebury, whose eye fastens naturally on her kindred aris- 
tocracy. “ Lord and Lady Wyebridge and suite. Lady Zedland 
and her family.” 

“ Hullo ! here’s Cutler of the Onety-oneth, and MacMull 
of the Greens, eii route to Noirbourg,” says Hicks, confidentially. 
“ Know MacMull ? Devilish good fellow — such a fellow to 
smoke.” 

Lankin, too, reads and grins. “Why, are they going the 
Rhenish circuit ? ” he says, and reads : 

Sir Thomas Minos, Lady Minos, nebst Begleitung, aus 
England. 

Sir John ^acus, mit Familie und Dienerschaft, aus England. 

Sir Roger Rhadamanthus. 

Thomas Smith, Serjeant. 

Serjeant Brown and Mrs. Brown, aus England. 

Serjeant Tomkins, Anglais. Madame Tomkins, Mesde- 
moiselles Tomkins. 

Monsieur Kewsy, Conseiller de S. M. la Reine d’Angleterre. 
Mrs. Kewsy, three Miss Kewsys. 

And to this list Lankin, laughing, had put down his own 
name, and that of the reader’s obedient servant, under the 
august autograph of Lady Kicklebury, who signed for herself, 
her son-in-law, and her suite. 

Yes, we all flock the one after the other, we faithful English 
folks. We can buy Harvey Sauce, and Cayenne Bepper, and 


THE JCICKLEBURYS ON THE RHINE. 


135 


Morison’s Pills, in every city in the world. We carry our na* 
tion everywhere with us ; and are in our island, wherever we go. 
Toto divisos orbe — always separated from the people in the midst 
of whom we are. 

When we came to the steamer next morning, “ the castled 
crag of Drachenfels ” rose up in the sunrise before, and looked 
as pink as the cheeks of Master Jacky, when they' have been 
just washed in the morning. How that rosy light, too, did 
become Miss Fanny’s pretty dimples, to be sure ! How good 
a cigar is at the early dawn ! I maintain that it has a flavor 
which it does not possess at later hours, and that it partakes of 
the freshness of all Nature. And wine, too : wine is never so 
good as at breakfast j only one can’t drink it, for tipsiness’s 
sake. 

See ! there is a young fellow drinking soda-water and brandy 
already. He puts down his glass with a gasp of satisfaction. 
It is evident that he had need of that fortifier and refresher. 
He puts down the beaker and says, “ How are you, Titmarsh ? 
I was so cut last night. My eyes, wasn’t I ! Not in the least : 
that’s all.” 

It is the youthful descendant and heir of an ancient line : 
the noble Earl of Grimsby’s son. Viscount Talboys. He is 
travelling with the Rev. Baring Leader, his tutor ; who, having 
a great natural turn and liking towards the aristocracy, and 
having inspected Lady Kicklebury’s cards on her trunks, has 
introduced himself to her ladyship already, and has inquired 
after Sir Thomas Kicklebury, whom he remembers perfectly, 
and whom he had often the happiness of meeting when Sir 
Thomas was an undergraduate at Oxford. There are few 
characters more amiable, and delightful to watch and contem- 
plate, than some of those middle-aged Oxford bucks who hang 
about the university and live with the young tufts. Leader can 
talk racing and boating with the fastest young Christchurch 
gentleman. Leader occasionally rides to cover with Lord 
Talboys ; is a good shot, and seldom walks out without a setter 
or a spaniel at his heels. Leader knows the “ Peerage ” and 
the “ Racing Calendar ” as well as the Oxford cram-books. 
Leader comes up to town and dines with Lord Grimsby. 
Leader goes to Court every two years. He is the greatest 
swell in his common-room. He drinks claret, and can’t stand 
port-wine any longer ; and the old fellows of his college admire 
him, and pet him, and get all their knowledge of the world and 
the aristocracy from him. I admire those kind old dons when 


THE KICKLEBURYS ON THE RHINE. 


136 

they appear affable and jaunty, men of the world, members of 
the “ Camford and Oxbridge Club,” upon the London pave- 
ment. I like to see them over the Morning Post in the common- 
room ; with a “ Ha, I see Lady Rackstraw has another 
daughter.” “ Poppleton there has been at another party at X 

House, yon weren't asked, my boy.” — “ Lord Cover- 

dale has got a large party staying at Coverdale. Did you know 
him at Christchurch ? He was a very handsome man before 
he broke his nose fighting the bargeman at Iffly ; a light-weight, 
but a beautiful sparrer,” &c. Let me add that Leader, although 
he does love a tuft, has a kind heart : as his mother and sisters 
in Yorkshire know ; as all the village knows too — which is 
proud of his position in the great world, and welcomes him 
very kindly when he comes down and takes the duty at Christ- 
mas, and preaches to them one or two of “ the very sermons 
which Lord Grimsby was good enough to like, when I delivered 
them at Talboys.” 

“You are not acquainted with Lord Talboys ? ” Leader 
asks, with a degage air. “ I shall have much pleasure in intro- 
ducing you to him. Talboys, let me introduce you to Lady 
Kicklebury. Sir Thomas Kicklebury was not at Christchurch 
in your time ; but you have heard of him, I dare say. Your 
son has left a reputation at Oxford.” 

“ I should think I have, too. He walked a hundred miles 
in a hundred hours. They said he bet that he’d drink a hun- 
dred pints of beer in a hundred hours : but I don’t think he 
could do it — not strong beer; don’t think any man could. 
The beer here isn’t worth a ” 

“ My dear Talboys,” says Leader, with a winning smile, “ I 
suppose Lady Kicklebury is not a judge of beer — and what an 
unromantic subject of conversation here, under the castled crag 
immortalized by Byron.” 

“ What the deuce does it mean about peasant-girls with 
dark-blue eyes, and hands that offer corn and wine ? ” asks 
Talboys. “ Pve never seen any peasant-girls, except the — 
ugliest set of woman I ever looked at.” 

“ The poet’s license. I see, Milliken, you are making a 
charming sketch. You used to draw when you were at Brase- 
nose, Milliken ; and play — yes, you played the violoncello.” 

Mr. Milliken still possessed these accomplishments. He 
was taken up that very evening by a soldier at Coblentz, for 
making a sketch of Ehrenbreitstein. Mrs. Milliken sketches 
immensely too, and writes poetry : such dreary pictures, such 
dreary poems ! but professional people are proverbially jealous ; 


THE KICKLEBURYS ON THE RHINE. 


M7 

and I doubt whether our fellow-passenger, the German, would 
even allow that Milliken could play the violoncello. 

Lady Kicklebury gives Miss Fanny a nudge when Lord 
Talboys appears, and orders her to exert all her fascinations. 
How the old lady coaxes, and she wheedles ! She pours out 
the Talboys’ pedigree upon him ; and asks after his aunt, and 
his mother's family. Is he going to Noirbourg ? How delight- 
ful ! There is nothing like British spirits ; and to see an 
English matron well set upon a young man of large fortune and 
high rank, is a great and curious sight. 

And yet, somehow, the British doggedness does not always 
answer. “ Do you know that old woman in the drab jacket, 
'ritmarsh ? ” my hereditary legislator asks of me. “ What the 
devil is she bothering 77ie for, about my aunts, and setting her 
daughter at me ? I ain’t such a fool as that. I ain’t clever, 
Titmarsh ; I never said I was. I never pretend to be clever, 
and that — but why does that old fool bother hay 
Heigho ! I’m devilish thirsty. I was devilish cut last night. 
I think I must have another go-off. Hallo you ! Kellner ! 
Garsong ! Ody soda, Oter petty vare do dyvee de Conac. 
That’s your sort; isn’t it. Leader?” 

“You will speak French well enough, if you practice,” says 
Leader with a tender voice ; “ practice is everything. Shall we 
dine at the table-d’hote ? Waiter ! put down the name of Vis- 
count Talboys and Mr. Leader, if you please.” 

The boat is full of all sorts and conditions of men. For’ard, 
there are peasants and soldiers : stumpy, placid-looking little 
warriors for the most part, smoking feeble cigars and looking 
quite harmless under their enormous helmets. A poor stunted 
dull-looking boy of sixteen, staggering before a black-striped 
sentry-box, with an enormous musket on his shoulder, does not 
seem to me a martial or awe-inspiring object. Has it not been 
said that we carry our prejudices everywhere, and only admire 
what we are accustomed to admire in our own country ? 

Yonder walks a handsome young soldier who has just been 
marrying a wife. How happy they seem ! and how pleased 
that everybody should remark their happiness. It is a fact 
that in the full sunshine, and before a couple of hundred 
people on board the Joseph Miller steamer, the soldier abso- 
lutely kissed Mrs. Soldier; at which the sweet Fanny Kickle- 
bury was made to blush. 

We were standing together looking at the various groups : 
the pretty peasant-woman (really pretty for once) with the red 
head-dress and fluttering ribbons, and the child in her arms ; 

lO 


THE KICKLEBURYS ON THE RHINE. 


13^ 

the jolly fat old gentleman (who little thought he would evei 
be a frontispiece in this life), and who was drinking Rhine wine 
before noon, and turning his back upon all the castles, towers, 
and ruins, which reflected their crumbling peaks in the water ; 
upon the handsome young students who came with us from 
Bonn, with their national colors in their caps, with their pic- 
turesque looks, their yellow ringlets, their budding mustaches, 
and with cuts upon almost every one of their noses, obtained in 
duels at the university : most picturesque are these young 
fellows, indeed — but ah, why need they have such black hands ? 

Near us is a type, too : a man who adorns his own tale, and 
points his own moral. “ Yonder, in his carriage, sits the Count 
de Reineck, who won’t travel without that dismal old chariot, 
though it is shabby, costly, and clumsy, and though the wicked 
red republicans come and smoke under his very nose. Yes, 
Miss Fanny, it is the lusty young Germany, pulling the nose of 
the worn-out old world.” 

“ Law, what do you mean, Mr. Titmarsh ? ” cries the dear 
Fanny. 

“ And here comes Mademoiselle de Reineck, with her com- 
panion. You see she is wearing out one of the faded silk 
gowns which she had spoiled at the Residenz during the sea- 
son : for the Reineck are economical, though they are proud ; 
and forced, like many other insolvent grandees, to do and to 
wear shabby things. 

“ It is very kind of the young countess to call her com- 
panion ‘Louise,’ and to let Louise call her ‘Laure;’ but if 
faces may be trusted, — and we can read in one countenance 
conceit and tyranny ; deceit and slyness in another, — dear 
Louise has to suffer some hard raps from dear Laure : and, 
to judge from her dress, I don’t think poor Louise has her 
salary paid very regularly. 

“ What a comfort it is to live in a country where there is 
neither insolence nor bankruptcy among the great folks, nor 
cringing, nor flattery among the small. Isn’t it. Miss Fanny ? ” 

Miss Fanny says, that she can’t understand whether I am 
joking or serious ; and her mamma calls her away to look at 
the ruins of Wigginstein. Everybody looks at Wigginstein. 
You are told in Murray to look at Wigginstein. 

Lankin, who has been standing by, with a grin every now 
and then upon his sardonic countenance, comes up and says, 
“ Titmarsh, how can you be so impertinent ? ” 

“ Impertinent ! as how ? ” 


THE KICKLEBURYS ON THE RHINE. 


139 


“ The girl must understand what you mean ; and you 
shouldn’t laugh at her own mother to her. Did you ever see 
anything like the way in which that horrible woman is follow- 
ing the young lord about ? ” 

“See! You see it everyday, my dear fellow; only the 
trick is better done ; and Lady Kicklebury is rather a clumsy 
practitioner. See I why nobody is better aware of the springs 
which are set to catch him than that young fellow himself, who 
is as knowing as any veteran in May Fair. And you don’t sup- 
pose that Lady Kicklebury fancies that she is doing anything 
mean or anything wrong ? Heaven bless you ! she never did 
anything wrong in her life. She has no idea but that every- 
thing she says, and thinks, and does is right. And no doubt 
she never did rob a church : and was a faithful wife to Sir 
Thomas, and pays her tradesmen. Confound her virtue I It 
is that which makes her so wonderful — that brass armor in 
which she walks impenetrable — not knowing what pity is, or 
charity ; crying sometimes when she is vexed, or thwarted, but 
laughing never; cringing, and domineering by the same natuial 
instinct — never doubting about herself above all. Let us rise, 
and revolt against those people, Lankin. Let us war with 
them, and smite them utterly. It is to use against these, es- 
pecially, that Scorn and Satire were invented.” 

“ And the animal you attack,” says Lankin, “ is provided 
with a hide to defend him — it is a common ordinance of 
nature.” 

And so we pass by tower and town, and float up the Rhine. 
We don’t describe the river. Who does not know it.? How 
you see people asleep in the cabins at the most picturesque 
parts, and angry to be awakened when they fire off those stupid 
guns for the echoes 1 It is as familiar to numbers of people as 
Greenwich ; and we know the merits of the inns along the road 
as if they were the “ Trafalgar,” or the “ Star and Garter.’' 
How stale everything grows ! If we were to live in a garden of 
Eden, now, and the gate were open, we should go out, and 
tramp forward, and push on, and get up early in the morning, 
and push on again — anything to keep moving, anything to get 
a change : anything but quiet for the restless children of Cain. 

So many thousands of English folks have been at Rouget- 
noirbourg in this and past seasons, that it is scarcely needful to 
alter the name of that pretty little gay, wicked place. There 
were so many British barristers there this year that they called 


140 


THE KICKLEBURYS ON THE RHINE. 


the “ Hotel des Quatre Saisons ’’ the “ Hotel of Quarter Ses- 
sions.” There were judges and their wives, serjeants and their 
ladies, Queen’s counsel learned in the law, the Northern circuit 
and the Western circuit : there were officers of half-pay and 
full-pay, military officers, naval officers, and sheriffs’ officers. 
There were people of high fashion and rank, and people of no 
rank at all ; there were men and women of reputation, and of 
the two kinds of reputation ; there were English boys playing 
cricket ;• English pointers putting up the German partridges, 
and English guns knocking them down ; there were women 
whose husbands, and men whose wives were at home ; there 
were High Church and Low Church — England turned out for a 
holiday, in a word. How much farther shall we extend our 
holiday ground, and where shall we camp next ? A winter at 
Cairo is nothing now. Perhaps ere long we shall be going to 
Saratoga Springs, and the Americans coming to Margate for 
the summer. 

Apartments befitting her dignity and the number of her 
family had been secured for Lady Kicklebury by her dutiful 
son, in the same house in which one of Lankin’s friends had 
secured for us much humbler lodgings. Kicklebury received 
his mother’s advent with a great deal of good-humor ; and a 
wonderful figure the good-natured little baror.et was when he 
presented himself to his astonished friends, scarcely recog- 
nizable by his own parent and sisters, and the staring retainers 
of their house. 

“ Mercy, Kicklebury ! have you become a red republican 
his mother asked. 

“ I can’t find a place to kiss you,” said Miss Fanny, laugh- 
ing to her brother ; and he gave her pretty cheek such a scrub 
with his red beard, as made some folks think it would be very 
pleasant to be Miss Fanny’s brother. 

In the course of his travels, one of Sir Thomas Kicklebury’s 
chief amusements and cares had been to cultivate this bushy 
auburn ornament. He said that no man could pronounce 
German properly without a beard to his jaws ; but he did not 
appear to have got much beyond this preliminary step to learn- 
ing ; and, in spite of his beard, his honest English accent came 
out, as his jolly English face looked forth from behind that 
fierce and bristly decoration, perfectly good-humored and un- 
mistakable. We try our best to look like foreigners, but we 
can’t. Every Italian mendicant or Pont Neuf beggar knows 
his Englishman in spite of blouse, and beard, and slouched hat. 
“ There is a peculiar high-bred grace about us,” I whisper to 


THE KICKLEBURYS ON THE RHINE. 


141 


Lady Kicklebury, “ an aristocratic je ne sais quoi, which is 
not to be found in any but Englishmen ; and it is that which 
makes us so immensely liked and admired all over the Conti- 
nent.” Well, this may be truth or joke — this may be a sneer 
or a simple assertion : our vulgarities and our insolences may, 
perhaps, make us as remarkable as that high breeding which 
we assume to possess. It may be that the Continental society 
ridicules and detests us, as we walk domineering over Europe ; 
but, after all, which of us would denationalize himself ? who 
wouldn’t be an Englishman 1 Come, sir, cosmopolite as you 
are, passing all your winters at Rome or at Paris ; exiled by 
choice or poverty, from your own country ; preferring easier 
manners, cheaper pleasures, a simpler life : are you not still 
proud of your British citizenship ? and would you like to be a 
Frenchman ? 

Kicklebury has a great acquaintance at Noirbourg, and as 
he walks into the great concert-room at night, introducing his 
mother and sisters there, he seemed to look about with a little 
anxiety, lest all of his acquaintance should recognize him. 
There are some in that most strange and motley company with 
whom he had rather not exchange salutations, under present 
circumstances. Pleasure-seekers from every nation in the world 
are here, sharpers of both sexes, wearers of the stars and 
cordons of every court in Europe : Russian princesses, Spanish 
grandees, Belgian, French, and English nobles, every degree of 
Briton, from the ambassador, who has his conge, to the London 
apprentice who has come out for his fortnight’s lark. Kickle- 
bury knows them all, and has a good-natured nod for each. 

“ Who is that lady with the three daughters who saluted 
you, Kicklebur}'' ? ” asks his mother. 

“ That is our Ambassadress at X., ma’am. I saw her yes- 
terday buying a penny toy for one of her little children in 
h'rankfort Fair. 

Lady Kicklebury looks towards Lady X. ; she makes her 
excellency an undeveloped curtsey, as it were ; she waves her 
plumed head (Lady K. is got up in great style, in a rich dejcimer 
toilette, perfectly regardless of expense) ; she salutes the am- 
bassadress with a sweeping gesture from her chair, and backs 
before her as before royalty, and turns to her daughters large 
eyes full of meaning, and spreads out her silks in state. 

And who is that distinguished-looking man who just passed, 
and who gave you a reserved nod ? ” asks her ladyship. “ Is 
that Lord X. .? ” 

Kicklebury burst out laughing. “That, ma’am, is Mr, 
10* 


142 


THE KICKLEBURYS ON THE RHINE. 


Higmore, of Conduit Street, tailor, draper, and habit-maker; 
and I owe him a hundred pound."’ 

“ The insolence of that sort of people is really intolerable,” 
says Lady Kicklebury. “ There must be some distinction of 
classes. They ought not to be allowed to go everywhere. And 
who is yonder, that lady with the two boys and the — the very 
high complexion t ” Lady Kicklebury asks. 

“ That is a Russian Princess : and one of those little boys, 
the one who is sucking a piece of barley-sugar, plays, and wins 
five hundred louis in a night.’’ 

“ Kicklebury, you do not play 7 Promise your mother you 
do not ! Swear to me at this moment you do not ! Where are 
the horrid gambling-rooms } There, at that door where the 
crowd is ? Of course, I shall never enter them ! ” 

“ Of course not, ma’am,” says the affectionate son on duty. 
“ And if you come to the balls here, please don’t let Fanny 
dance with anybody, until you ask me first : you understand ? 
P^anny, you will take care.” 

“ Yes, Tom,” says Fanny. 

“ What, Hicks, how are you, old fellow ? How is Platts } 
Who would have thought of you being here ? When did you 
come ? ” 

“ I had the pleasure of travelling with Lady Kicklebury and 
her daughters in the London boat to Antwerp, says Captain 
Hicks, making the ladies a bow. Kicklebury introduces Hicks 
to his mother as his most particular friend — and he whispers 
Fanny that “ he’s as good a fellow as ever lived, Hicks is.” 
Fanny says, “ He seems very kind and good-natured : and — 
and Captain Hicks waltzes very well,” says Miss Fanny with a 
blush, “ and I hope I may have him for one of my partners.” 

What a Babel of tongues it is in this splendid hall with 
gleaming marble pillars : a ceaseless rushing whisper as if the 
band were playing its music by a waterfall ! The British 
lawyers are all got together, and my friend Lankin, on his 
arrival, has been carried off by his brother serjeants, and 
becomes once more a lawyer. “ Well, brother Lankin,” says 
old Sir Thomas Minos, with his venerable kind face, ‘‘ you 
have got your rule, I see.” And they fall into talk about their 
law matters, as they always do, wherever they are — at a club, 
in a ball-room, at a dinner-table, at the top of Chimborazo. 
Some of the young barristers appear as bucks with uncommon 
splendor, and dance and hang about the ladies. But they 
have not the easy languid deuce-may-care air of the young 
bucks of the Hicks and Kicklebury school — they can’t put on 


THE KICKLEBURYS ON THE KlIIEE. 


U.3 


their clothes with that happy negligence ; their neck-cloths sit 
quite differently on them, somehow : they become very hot 
when they dance, and yet do not spin round near so quickly 
as those London youths, who have acquired experience in 
corpore vili^ and learned to dance easily by the practice of a 
thousand casinos. 

Above the Babel tongues and the clang of the music, as 
you listen in the great saloon, you hear from a neighboring 
room a certain sharp ringing clatter, and a hard clear voice 
cries out, “Zero rouge,” or “ Trente-cinq noir. Impair et 
passe.” And then there is a pause of a couple of minutes, and 
then the voice says, “ Faites le jeu. Messieurs. Le jeu est 
fait, rien ne va plus ” — and the sharp ringing clatter recom- 
mences. You know what that room is ? That is Hades. 
That is where the spirited proprietor of the establishment takes 
his toll, and thither the people go wdio pay the money which 
supports the spirited proprietor of this fine palace and gardens. 
Let us enter Hades, and see what is going on there. 

Hades is not an unpleasant place. Most of the people 
look rather cheerful. You don’t see any frantic gamblers 
gnashing their teeth or dashing down their last stakes. The 
winners have the most anxious faces ; or the poor shabby 
fellows who have got systems, and are pricking down the alter- 
nations of red and black on cards, and don’t seem to be play- 
ing at all. On fete days the country people come in, men and 
women, to gamble ; and they seem to be excited as they put 
down their hard-earned florins with trembling rough hands, 
and watch the turn of the wheel. But what you call the good 
company is very quiet and easy. A man loses his mass of 
gold, and gets up and walks off, without any particular mark 
of despair. The only gentleman whom I saw at Noirbourg 
who seemed really affected w'as a certain Count de Mustacheff, 
a Russian of enormous wealth, who clenched his fists, beat his 
breast, cursed his stars, and absolutely cried with grief : not 
for losing money, but for neglecting to win and play upon a 
coup de vingt^ a series in which the red was turned up twenty 
times running : which series, had he but played, it is clear that 
he might have broken M. Lenoir’s bank, and shut up the 
gambling-house, and doubled his own fortune — when he would 
have been no happier, and all the balls and music, all the 
newspaper-rooms and parks, all the feasting and pleasure of 
this delightful Rougetnoirbourg would have been at an end. 

For though he is a wicked gambling prince, Lenoir, he is 
beloved in all these regions ; his establishment gives life to the 


144 


THE KICKLEBURYS QN THE RHINE. 


town, to the lodging-house and hotel-keepers, to the milliners 
and hackney-coachmen, to the letters of horse-flesh, to the 
huntsmen and gardes-de-chasse ; to all these honest fiddlers 
and trumpeters who play so delectably. Were Lenoir’s bank 
to break, the whole little city would shut up ; and all the 
Noirbourgers wish him prosperity, and benefit by his good 
fortune. 

Three years since the Noirbourgers underwent a mighty 
panic. There came, at a time when the chief Lenoir was at 
Paris, and the reins of government were in the hands of his 
younger brother, a company of adventurers from Belgium, with 
a capital of three hundred thousands francs, and an infallible 
system for playing roug-e et noir, and they boldly challenged the 
bank of Lenoir, and sat down before his croupiers, and defied 
him. They called themselves in their pride the Contrebanque 
de Noirbourg : they had their croupiers and punters, even as 
Lenoir had his: they had their rouleaux of Napoleons, stamped 
with their Contrebanquish seal ; — and they began to play. 

As when two mighty giants step out of a host and engage, 
the armies stand still in expectation, and the puny privates 
and commonalty remain quiet to witness the combat of the 
tremendous champions of the war : so it is said that when the 
Contrebanque arrived, and ranged itself before the officers of 
Lenoir — rouleau to rouleau, bank-note to bank-note, war for 
war, controlment for controlment — all the minor punters and 
gamblers ceased their peddling play, and looked on in silence, 
round the verdant plain where the great combat was to be 
decided. 

Not used to the vast operations of war, like his elder brother, 
Lenoir junior, the lieutenant, telegraphed to his absent chief 
the news of the mighty enemy who had come down upon him, 
asked for instructions, and in the meanwhile met the foeman 
like a man. The Contrebanque of Noirbourg gallantly opened 
its campaign. 

The Lenoir bank was defeated day after day, in numerous 
savage encounters. The tactics of the Contrebanquist generals 
were irresistible : their infernal system bore down everything 
before it, and they marched onwards terrible and victorious as 
the Macedonian phalanx. Tuesday, a loss of eighteen thou- 
sand florins ; Wednesday, a loss of twelve thousand florins ! 
Thursday, a loss of forty thousand florins : night after 
night, the young Lenior had to chronicle these disasters 
in melancholy despatches to his chief. What was to be 
done ? Night after night, the Noirbourgers retired home doubt- 


THE KICKLEBURYS ON THE RHINE. 


145 

tul and disconsolate ; the horrid Contrebanquists gathered up 
their spoils and retired to a victorious siipj^er. How was it 
to end ? 

Far away at Paris, the elder Lenoir answered these appeals 
of his brother by sending reinforcements of money. Chests of 
gold arrived for the bank. The Prince of Noirbourg bade his 
beleaguered lieutenant not to lose heart : he himself never foi 
a moment blenched in this trying hour of danger. 

The Contrebanquists still went on victorious. Rouleau 
after rouleau fell into their possession. At last the news came : 
The Emperor has joined the Grand Army. Lenoir himself had 
arrived from Paris, and was once more among his children, his 
people. The daily combats continued : and still, still, though 
Napoleon was with the Eagles, the abominable Contrebanquists 
fought and conquered. And far greater than Napoleon, as great 
as Ney himself under disaster, the bold Lenoir never lost cour- 
age, never lost good-humor, was affable, was gentle, was care- 
ful of his subjects’ pleasures and comforts, and met an adverse 
fortune with a dauntless smile. 

With a devilish forbearance and coolness, the atrocious, 
Contrebanque — like Polyphemus, who only took one of his 
prisoners out of the cave at a time, and so ate them off at 
leisure — the horrid Contrebanquists, I say, contented them- 
selves with winning so much before dinner, and so much be- 
fore sujDper — say five thousand florins for each meal. They 
played and won at noon : they played and won at eventide. 
They of Noirbourg went home sadly every night : the invader 
was carrying all before him. What must have been the feelings 
of the great Lenoir ? What were those of Washington before 
Trenton, when it seemed all up with the cause of American 
Independence ; what those of the virgin Elizabeth, when the 
Armada was signalled ; what those of Miltiades, when the 
multitudinous Persian bore down on Marathon ? The people 
looked on at the combat, and saw their chieftain stricken, 
bleeding, fallen, fighting still. 

At last there came one day when the Contrebanquists had 
won their allotted sum, and were about to leave the tables 
which they had swept so often. But pride and lust of gold had 
seized upon the heart of one of their vainglorious chieftains ; 
and he said, “ Do not let us go yet — let us win a thousand 
florins more ! ” So they stayed and set the bank yet a thou- 
sand florins. The Noirbourgers looked on, and trembled for 
their prince. 

Some three hours afterwards — a shout, a mighty shout was 


146 


THE KTCKLEBURYS OX THE RHINE. 


heard around the windows of that palace : the town, the gar^ 
dens, the hills, the fountains took up and echoed the jubilant 
acclaim. Hip, hip, hip, hurrah, hurrah, hurrah I People 
rushed into each others’ arms ; men, women, and children crie<^. 
and kissed each other. Croupiers, who never feel, who never 
tremble, who never care whether black wins or red loses, took 
snuff from each others’ boxes, and laughed for joy ; and Lenoif 
the dauntless, the invincible Lenoir, wiped the drops of per- 
spiration from his calm forehead, as he drew the enemy’s last 
rouleau into his till. He had conquered. The Persians were 
beaten, horse and foot — the Armada had gone down. Since 
Wellington shut up his telescope at Waterloo, when the Prus- 
sians came charging on to the field, and the Guard broke and 
fled, there had been no such heroic endurance, such utter de- 
feat, such signal and crowning victory. Vive Lenoir ! I am a 
Lenoirite. I have read his newspapers, strolled in his gardens, 
listened to his music, and rejoice in his victory : I am glad he 
beat those Contrebanquists. Dissipati sunt. The game is up 
with them. 

The instances of this man’s magnanimity are numerous, 
and worthy of Alexander the Great, or Harry the Fifth, or 
Robin Hood. Most gentle is he, and thoughtful to the poor, 
and merciful to the vanquished. When Jeremy Diddler, who 
had lost twenty pounds at his table, lay in inglorious pawn at 
his inn — when O’Toole could not leave Noirbourg until he had 
received his remittances from Ireland — the noble Lenoir paid 
Diddler’s inn bill, advanced O’Toole money upon his well- 
known signature, franked both of them back to their native 
country again ; and has never, wonderful to state, been paid 
from that day to this. If you will go play at his table, you may ; 
but nobody forces you. If you lose, pay with a cheerful heart. 
Duke est desipere in loco. This is not a treatise of morals. 
Friar Tuck was not an exemplary ecclesiastic, nor Robin Hood 
a model man ; but he was a jolly outlaw ; and I dare say the 
Sheriff of Nottingham, wdiose money he took, rather relished 
his feast at Robin’s green table. 

And if you lose, worthy friend, as possibly you will, at Le- 
noir’s pretty games, console yourself by thinking that it is 
much better for you in the end that you should lose, than that 
you should win. Let me, for my part, make a clean breast of 
it, and own that your humble servant did, on one occasion, win 
a score of Napoleons ; and beginning with a sum of no less 
than five shillings. But until I had lost them again I was so 


THE KICKLEBURYS ON THE RHINE. 


147 


i?everish, excited, and uneasy, that I had neither delectation in 
reading the most exciting French novels, nor pleasure in seeing 
pretty landscapes, nor appetite for dinner. The moment, how' 
ever, that graceless money was gone, equanimity was restored : 
Paul Feval and Eughne Sue began to be terrifically interesting 
again ; and the dinners at Noirbourg, though by no means good 
culinary specimens, were perfectly sufficient for my easy and 
tranquil mind. Lankin, who played only a lawyer’s rubber at 
whist, marked the salutary change in his friend’s condition ; 
and, for my part, I hope and pray that every honest reader of 
this volume who plays at M. Lenoir’s table will lose every shil- 
ling of his winnings before he goes away. Where are the gam- 
blers whom we have read of.? Where are the card-players 
whom we can remember in our early days ? At one time al- 
most every gentleman played, and there were v^hist-tables in 
every lady’s drawing-room. But trumps are going out along 
with numbers of old-world institutions ; and, before very long, 
a black-leg will be as rare an animal as a knight in armor. 

There was a little dwarfish, abortive, counter-bank set up 
at Noirbourg this year : but the gentlemen soon disagreed 
among themselves ; and, let us hope, were cut off in detail by 
the great Lenoir. And there was a Frenchman at our inn who 
had won two Napoleons per day for the last six weeks, and who 
had an infallible system, whereof he kindly offered to communi- 
cate the secret for the consideration of a hundred Louis ; but 
there came one fatal night when the poor Frenchman’s system 
could not make head against fortune, and her wheel went over 
him, and he disappeared utterly. 

With the early morning everybody rises and makes his or 
her appearance at the Springs, where they partake of water with 
a wonderful energy and perseverance. They say that people 
get to be fond of this water at last ; as to what tastes cannot 
men accustom themselves ? I drank a couple of glasses of an 
abominable sort of feeble salts in a state of very gentle effer- 
vescence ; but, though there was a very pretty girl who served 
it, the drink was abominable, and it was a marvel to see the 
various topers, who tossed off glass after glass, which the fair- 
haired little Hebe delivered sparkling from the well. 

Seeing my wry faces, old Captain Carver expostulated, with 
a jolly twinkle of his eye, as he absorbed the contents of a 
sparkling crystal beaker. “ Pooh ! take another glass, sir : 
you’ll like it better and better every day. It refreshes you, sir ; 
it fortifies you : and as for liking it — gad ! 1 remember the time 


148 


THE KICKLEBURYS ON THE KIHNE. 


when I didn’t like claret. Times are altered now, ha ! ha 1 
Mrs. Fantail, madam, I w'ish you a very good-morning. How 
is Fantail He don’t come to drink the water : so much the 
worse for him.” 

To see Mrs. Fantail of an evening is to behold a magnificent 
sight. She ought to be shown in a room by herself ; and, in- 
deed, would occupy a moderate-sized one with her person and 
adornments. Marie Antoinette’s hoop is not bigger than Mrs. 
Fantail’s flounces. Twenty men taking hands (and, indeed, she 
likes to have at least that number about her) would scarcely 
encompass her. Her chestnut ringlets spread out in a halo 
round her face : she must want two or three coiffeurs to arrange 
that prodigious head-dress ; and then, when it is done, how car 
she endure that extraordinary gown 1 Her travelling band- 
boxes must be as large as omnibuses. 

But see Mrs. Fantail in the morning, having taken in all 
sail : the chestnut curls have disappeared, and two limp bands 
of brown hair border her lean, sallow face ; you see before you 
an ascetic, a nun, a woman worn by mortifications, of a sad 
yellow aspect, drinking salts at the well : a vision quite different 
from that rapturous one of the previous night’s ball-room. No 
wonder Fantail does not come out of a morning ; he had rather 
not see such a F.ebecca at the well. 

Lady Kickh.bury came for some mornings pretty regularly, 
and was very civil to Mr. Leader, and made Miss Fanny drink 
when his lordship took a cup, and asked Lord Talboys and his 
tutor to dinner. But the tutor came, and, blushing, brought an 
excuse from Talboys ; and poor Milliken had not a very pleas- 
ant evening after Mr. Baring Leader rose to go away. 

But though the water was not good the sun was bright, the 
music cheery, the landscape fresh and pleasant, and it was al- 
ways amusing to see the vast varieties of our human species 
tliat congregated at the Springs, and trudged up and down the 
green allees. One of the gambling conspirators of the roulette 
table it was good to see here, in his private character, drinking 
down pints of salts like any other sinner, having a homely wife 
on his arm, and between them a poodle on which they lavished 
their tenderest affection. You see these people care for other 
things besides trumps ; and are not always thinking about black 
and red : — as even ogres are represented, in their histories, as 
of cruel natures, and licentious appetites, and, to be sure, fond 
of eating men and women ; but yet it appears that their wives 
often respected them, and they had a sincere liking for their 
own hideous children. And, besides the card-players, there 


THE KTCKLEBURYS ON THE RHINE. 


149 


are band-players : every now and then a fiddle from the neigh- 
boring orchestra, or a disorganized bassoon, will step down and 
drink a glass of the water, and jump back into his rank again. 

Then come the burly troops of English, the honest lawyers, 
merchants, and gentlemen, with their wives and buxom daugh- 
ters, and stout sons, that, almost grown to the height of man- 
hood, are boys still, with rough wide-awake hats and shooting- 
jackets, full of lark and laughter. A French boy of sixteen has 
had des passions ere that time, very likely, and is already par- 
ticular in his dress, an ogler of the women, and preparing to 
kill. Adolphe says to Alphonse — “ Lk voila cette charmante 
Miss Fanni, la belle Kickleburi ! je te donne ma parole, elle 
est fraiche comme une rose ! la crois-tu riche, Alphonse ? ” “ Je 
me range, mon ami, vois-tu ? La vie de gargon me pese. Ma 
parole d’honneur ! je me range.’’ 

And he gives Miss Fanny a killing bow, and a glance which 
seems to say, “ Sweet Anglaise, I know that I have won your 
heart.” 

Then besides the young French buck, whom we will willingly 
suppose harmless, you see specimens of the French raff, who 
goes aux eaiix : gambler, speculator, sentimentalist, duellist, 
travelling with madame his wife, at whom other raffs nod and 
wink familiarly. This rogue is much more picturesque and 
civilized than the similar person in our own country : whose 
manners betray the stable ; who never reads anything but 
BelVs Life ; and who is much more at ease in conversing with 
a groom than with his employer. Here come Mr. Boucher and 
Mr. Fowler : better to gamble for a score of nights with honest 
Monsieur Lenoir, than to sit down in private once with those 
gentlemen. But we have said that their profession is going 
down, and the number of Greeks daily diminishes. They are 
travelling with Mr. Bloundell, who was a gentleman once, and 
still retains about him some faint odor of that time of bloom \ 
and Bloundell has put himself on young Lord Talboys, and is 
trying to get some money out of that young nobleman. But the 
English youth of the present day is a wide-awake youth, and 
male or female artifices are expended pretty much in vain on 
our young travelling companion. 

Who come yonder ? Those two fellows whom we met at 
the table-d’hote at the “ Hotel de Russie ” the other day : 
gentlemen of splendid costume, and yet questionable appear- 
ances, the eldest of whom called for the list of wines, and cried 
out loud enough for all the company to hear, “ Lafite, six florins. 
’Arry, shall we have some Lafite You don’t mind t No more 


THE KICKLEBURYS ON THE RHINE. 


^50 

do I then. I say, waiter, let’s ’ave a pint of ordinaire.” Truth 
is stranger than fiction. You good fellow, wherever you are, 
why did you ask ’Arry to ’ave that pint of ordinaire in the 
presence of your obedient servant ? How could he do other- 
wise than chronicle the speech ? 

And see : here is a lady who is doubly desirous to be put 
into print, who encourages it and invites it. It appears that on 
Lankin’s first arrival at Noirbourg with his travelling com 
panion, a certain sensation was created in the little society by 
the rumor that an emissary of the famous Mr. Punch had 
arrived in the place ; and, as we were smoking the cigar of 
peace on the lawn after dinner, looking on at the benevolent, 
pretty scene, Mrs. Hopkins, Miss Hopkins, and the excellent 
head of the family, walked many times up and down before us ; 
eyed us severely face to face, and then walking away, shot back 
fierce glances at us in the Parthian manner ; and at length, at 
the third or fourth turn, and when we could not but overhear so 
fine a voice, Mrs. Hopkins looks at us steadily, and says, “ I’m 
sure he may put me in if he likes: I don’t mind.” 

Oh, ma’am ! Oh, Mrs. Hopkins ! how should a gentleman, 
who had never seen your face or heard of you before, want to 
put you in ? What interest can the British public have in you ? 
But as you wish it, and court publicity, here you are. Good 
luck go with you, madam. I have forgotten your real name, 
and should not know you again if I saw you. But why could 
not you leave a man to take his coffee and smoke his pipe in 
quiet ? 

We could never have time to make a catalogue of all the 
portraits that figure in this motley gallery. Among the travel- 
lers in Europe, who are daily multiplying in numbers and in- 
creasing in splendor, the United States’ dandies must not be 
omitted. They seem as rich as the Milor of old days ; they 
crowd in European capitals \ they have elbowed out people of 
the old country' from many hotels which we used to frequent ; 
tliey adopt the French fashion of dressing rather than ours, 
and they grow handsomer beards than English beards : as 
some plants are found to flourish and shoot up prodigiously 
when introduced into a new soil. The ladies seem to be as 
well-dressed as Parisians, and as handsome ; though somewhat 
more delicate, perhaps, than the native English roses. They 
drive the finest carriages, they keep the grandest houses, they 
frequent the grandest company — and, in a word, the Broadway 
Swell has now taken his station and asserted his dignity 
amongst the grandees of Europe. He is fond of asking Count 


THE KICKLEBURYS OET THE R II EYE. 


151 

Reineck to dinner, and Grafinn Laura will condescend to look 
kindly upon a gentleman who has millions of dollars. Here 
comes a pair of New Yorkers. Behold their elegant curling 
beards, their velvet coatS, their delicate primrose gloves and 
cambric handkerchiefs, and the aristocratic beauty of their 
boots. Why, if you had sixteen quarterings, you could not 
have smaller feet than those ; and if you were descended from 
a line of kings you could not smoke better or bigger cigars. 

Lady Kicklebury deigns to think \ery well of these young 
men, since'she has seen them in the company of grandees and 
heard how rich they are. “ Who is that very stylish-looking 
woman, to whom Mr. Washington Walker spoke just now ? ” 
she asks of Kicklebury. 

Kicklebury gives a twinkle of his eye. “ Oh, that, mother ! 
that is Madame La Princesse de Mogador^it’s a French title.” 

“ She danced last night, and danced exceedingly well ; I re- 
marked her. There’s a very high-bred grace about the prin- 
cess.” 

“Yes, exceedingly. We’d better come on,” says Kickle- 
bury, blushing rather, as he returns the princess’s nod. 

It is wonderful how large Kicklebury ’s acquaintance is. 
He has a word and a joke, in the best German he can muster, 
for everybody — ‘for the high well-born lady, as for the German 
peasant maiden, who stood for the lovely portrait which faces 
this page ; as for the pretty little washerwoman, who comes full 
sail down the streets, a basket on her head and one of Mr. 
Fantail’s wonderful gowns swelling on each arm. As we were 
going to the Schloss-Garten I caught a sight of the rogue’s 
grinning face yesterday, close at little Gretel’s ear under her 
basket ; but spying out his mother advancing, he dashed down 
a bystreet, and when we came up with her, Gretel was alone. 

One but seldom sees the English and the holiday visitors in 
the ancient parts of Noirbourg; they keep to the streets of new 
buildings and garden villas, which have sprung up under the 
magic influence of M. Lenoir, under the white towers and gables 
of the old German town. The Prince of Trente-et-Quarante 
has quite overcome the old serene sovereign of Noirbourg, 
whom one cannot help fancying a prince like a prince in a 
Christmas, pantomime — a burlesque prince with twopence-half- 
penny for a revenue, jolly and irascible, a prime-minister-kicking 
prince, fed upon fabulous plum-puddings and enormous paste- 
board joints, by cooks and valets with large heads which never 
alter their grin. Not that this portrait is from the life. Per- 
haps he has no life. Perhaps there is no prince in that great 


52 


THE KICKLEBURYS ON THE RIJfNE. 


white tower, that we see for miles before we enter the little 
town. Perhaps he has been mediatized, and sold his kingdom 
to Monsieui; Lenoir. Before the palace of Lenoir there is a 
grove of orange-trees in tubs, which Lenoir bought from an- 
other German prince ; who went straightway and lost the money, 
which he had been paid for his wonderful orange-trees, over 
Lenoir’s green tables, at his roulette and trente-et-quarante. 
A great prince is Lenoir in his way; a generous and magnani- 
mous prince. You may come to his feast and pay nothing, 
unless you please. You may walk in his gardens, sit in his 
palace, and read his thousand newspapers. You may go and 
play whist in his small drawing-room, or dance and hear con- 
certs in his grand saloon — and there is not a penny to pay — • 
His fiddlers and trumpeters begin trumpeting and fiddling for 
you at the early dawn — they twang and blow for you in the 
afternoon, they pipe for you at night that you may dance — and. 
there is nothing to pay — Lenoir pays for all. Give him but the 
chances of the table, and he will do all this and more. It 
is better to live under Prince Lenoir than a fabulous old Ger- 
man Durchlaucht whose cavalry ride wicker horses with pet- 
ticoats, and whose prime minister has a great pasteboard head. 
Vive le Prince Lenoir ! 

There is a grotesque old carved gate to the palace of the 
Durchlaucht, from which you could expect none but a panto- 
mime procession to pass. The place looks asleep ; the courts 
are grass-grown and deserted. Is the Sleeping Beauty lying 
yonder, in the great white tower } What is the little army 
about ? It seems a sham army : a sort of grotesque military. 
The only charge of infantry was this : one day when passing 
through the old town, looking for sketches. Perhaps they be- 
come croupiers at night. What can such a fabulous prince 
want with anything but a sham army } My favorite walk was 
in the ancient quarter of the town — the dear old fabulous quar- 
ter, away from the noisy actualities of life and Prince Lenoir’s 
new palace — out of eye and earshot of the dandies and the 
ladies in their grand best clothes at the promenades — and the 
rattling whirl of the roulette wheel — and I liked to wander in 
the glum old gardens under the palace wall, and imagine the 
Sleeping Beauty within there. 

Some one persuaded us one day to break the charm, and 
see the interior of the palace. I am sorry we did. There was 
no Sleeping Beauty in any chamber that we saw ; nor any fairies, 
good or malevolent. There was a set of clean old rooms, 
which looked as if they had belonged to a prince hard put to it 


THE KICKLEBURYS OH THE RHINE. 


153 


for mone}'^, and whose tin crown jewels would not fetch more 
than King Stephen’s pantaloons. A fugitive prince, a brave 
prince struggling with the storms of fate, a prince in exile may 
be poor ; but a prince looking out of his own palace windows 
with a dressing-gown out at elbows, and dunned by his subject 
washerwoman — I say this is a painful object. When they get 
shabby they ought not to be seen. “ Don’t you think so. Lady 
Kicklebury ? ” Lady Kicklebury evidently had calculated the 
price of the carpets and hangings, and set them justly down at 
a low figure. “ These German princes,” she said, “ are not to 
be put on a level with English noblemen.” “ Indeed,” we an- 
swer, “ there is nothing so perfect as England : nothing so good 
as our aristocracy ; nothing so perfect as our institutions.” 
“Nothing! nothing P' says Lady K. 

An English princess was once brought to reign here ; and 
almost the whole of the little court was kept upon her dowry. 
The people still regard her name fondly ; and they show, at 
the Schloss, the rooms which she inhabited. Her old books 
are still there — her old furniture brought from home ; the pres- 
ents and keepsakes sent by her family are as they were in the 
princess’s lifetime : the very clock has the name of a Windsor 
maker on its face ; and portraits of all her numerous race dec- 
orate the homely walls of the now empty chambers. There is 
the benighted old king, his beard hanging down to the star on 
his breast ; and the first gentleman of Europe — so lavish of his 
portrait everywhere, and so chary of showing his royal person 
■ — all the stalwart brothers of the now all but extinct generation 
are there ; their quarrels and their pleasures, their glories and 
disgraces, enemies, flatterers, detractors, admirers — all now 
buried. Is it not curious to think that the King of Trumps 
now virtually reigns in this place, and has deposed the other 
lynasty } 

Very early one morning, wishing to have a sketch of the 
Vhite Tower in which our English princess had been impris- 
oned, I repaired to the gardens, and set about a work, which, 
when completed, will no doubt have the honor of a place on 
the line at the Exhibition ; and returning homewards to break- 
fast, musing upon the strange fortunes and inhabitants of the 
queer, fantastic, melancholy place, behold, I came suddenly 
upon a couple of persons, a male and a female ; the latter of 
whom wore a blue hood or “ ugly,” and blushed very much on 
seeing me. The man began to laugh behind his mustaches, 
the which cachinnation was checked by an appealing look from 
the young lady ; and he held out his hand and said, “ How d’yo 
do, Titmarsh ? Been out making some cawickachaws, hay ? ” 


154 


THE KICKLEBURYS ON THE RHINE. 


I need not say that the youth before me was the heav3p 
dragoon, and the maiden was Miss Fanny Kicklebury. Or 
need I repeat that, in the course of my blighted being, I never 
loved a young gazelle to glad me with its dark-blue eye, but 
when it came to, &c., the usual disappointment was sure to 
ensue ? There is no necessity why I should allude to my feel- 
ings at this most manifest and outrageous case. I gave a with- 
ering glance of scorn at the pair, and, with a stately salutation, 
passed on. 

Miss Fanny came tripping after me. She held out her 
little hand with such a pretty look of deprecation, that I could 
not but take it ; and she said, “ Mr. Titmarsh, if you please, I 
want to speak to you, if you please;” and, choking with emo- 
tion, I bade her speak on. 

“ My brother knows all about it, and highly approves of 
Captain Hicks,” she said, with her head hanging down ; “ and 
oh, he’s very good and kind : and I know him much better now, 
than I did when we were on board the steamer.” 

I thought how I had mimicked him, and what an ass I had 
been. 

“ And you know,” she continued, “ that you have quite de- 
serted me for the last ten days for your great acquaintances.” 

“ I have been to play chess with Lord Knightsbridge, who 
has the gout.” 

“ And to drink tea constantly with that American lady ; and 
you have written verses in her album, and in Lavinia’s album ; 
and as I saw that you had quite thrown me off, why I — my 
brother approves of it highly ; and — and Captain Hicks likes 
you very much, and says you amuse him very much — indeed he 
does,” says the arch little wretch. And then she added a post- 
script, as it were, to her letter, which contained, as usual, the 
point which she wished to urge : — 

“You — won’t break it to mamma — will you be so kind? 
My brother will do that ” — and I promised her ; and she ran 
away, kissing her hand to me. And I did not say a word to 
Lady Kicklebury, and not above a thousand people at Noirbourg 
knew that Miss Kicklebury and Captain Hicks were engaged. 

And now let those v;ho are too confident of their virtue lis- 
ten to the truthful and melancholy story which I have to relate, 
and humble themselves, and bear in mind that the most perfect 
among us are occasionally liable to fall. Kicklebury was not 
perfect, — I do not defend his practice. He spent a great deal 
more time and money than was good for him at M. Lenoir’s 


THE KICKLEBURYS ON THE RHINE. 


*55 


gaming-table, and the only thing which the young fellow never 
lost was his good-humor. If Fortune shook her swift wings 
and fled away from him, he laughed at the retreating pinions, 
and you saw him dancing and laughing as gayly after losing a 
rouleau, as if he was made of money, and really had the five 
thousand a year which his mother said was the amount of the 
Kicklebury property. But when her ladyship’s jointure,vand 
the young ladies’ allowances, and the interest of mortgages were 
paid out of the five thousand a year, I grieve to say that the 
gallant Kicklebury’s income was to be counted by hundreds 
and not by thousands ; so that, for any young lady who wants 
a carriage (and who can live without one ?) our friend the baro- 
net is not a desirable specimen of bachelors. Now, whether 
it was that the presence of his mamma interrupted his pleasures, 
or certain of her ways did not please him, or that he had lost 
all his money at roulette and could afford no more, certain it is, 
that after about a fortnight’s stay at Noirbourg, he went off to 
shoot with Count Einhorn in Westphalia ; he and Hicks part- 
ing the dearest of friends, and the Baronet going off on a pony 
which the captain lent to him. Between him and Milliken, his 
brother-in-law, there was not much sympathy : for he pronounced 
Mr. Milliken to be what is called a muff ; and had never been 
familiar with his eldest sister Lavinia, of whose poems he had 
a mean opinion, and who used to tease and worry him by teach- 
ing him French, and telling tales of him to his mamma, when 
he was a schoolboy home for the holidays. Whereas, between 
the baronet and Miss Fanny there seemed to be the closest af- 
fection ; they walked together every morning to the waters ; 
they joked and laughed with each other as happily as possible. 
Fanny was almost ready to tell fibs to screen her brother’s mal- 
practices from her mamma : she cried when she heard of his 
mishaps, and that he had lost too much money at the green 
table ; and when Sir Thomas went away, the good little soul 
brought him five louis ; which was all the money she had : for 
you see she paid her mother handsomely for her board ; and 
when her little gloves and milliners’ bills were settled — how 
much was there left out of two hundred a year? And she 
cried when she heard that Hicks had lent Sir Thomas money, 
and went up and said, “ Thank you. Captain Hicks ; ” and 
shook hands with the captain so eagerly, that I thought he was 
a lucky fellow, who had a father a wealthy attorney in Bedford 
Row. Heigh-ho ! I saw how matters were going. The birds 
mtist sing in the spring-time, and the flowers bud. 

Mrs. Milliken, in her character of invalid, took the advan* 


THE KICKLEBURYS OH THE RHINE. 


X56 

tage of her situation to have her husband constantly about her, 
reading to her, or fetching the doctor to her, or watching her 
whilst she was dozing, and so forth ; and Lady Kicklebury 
found the life which this pair led rather more monotonous than 
that sort of existence which she liked, and would leave them 
alone with Fanny (Captain Hicks not uncommonly coming in to 
talie,tea with the three), whilst her ladyship went to the Redoute 
to hear the music, or read the papers, or play a game of whist 
there. 

The newspaper-room at Noirbourg is next to the roulette- 
room, into which the doors are always open; and Lady K. 
would come, with newspaper in hand, into this play-room, some- 
times, and look on at the gamesters. I have mentioned a little 
Russian boy, a little imp with the most mischievous intelligence 
and good-humor in his face, who was suffered by his parents to 
play as much as he chose, and who jDulled bonbons out of one 
pocket and Napoleons out of the other, and seemed to have 
quite a diabolical luck at the table. 

Lady Kicklebury’s terror and interest at seeing this boy 
were extreme. She watched him and watched him, and he 
seemed always to win ; and at last her ladyship put down just 
a florin — only just one florin — on one of the numbers at roulette 
which the little Russian imp was backing. Number twenty- 
seven came up, and the croupiers flung over three gold pieces 
and five florins to Lady Kicklebury, which she raked up with a 
trembling hand. 

She did not play any more that night, but sat in the play- 
room, pretending to read the Times newspaper ; but you could 
see her eye peering over the sheet, and always fixed on the 
little imp of a Russian. He had very good luck that night, 
and his winning made her very savage. As he retired, rolling 
his gold pieces into his pocket and sucking his barley-sugar, 
she glared after him with angry eyes ; and went home, and 
scolded everybody, and had no sleep. I could hear her scold- 
ing. Our apartments in the Tissisch House overlooked Lady 
Kicklebury’s suite of rooms : the great windows were open in 
the autumn. Yes ; I could hear her scolding, and see some 
other people sitting whispering in the embrasure, or looking 
out on the harvest moon. 

The next evening. Lady Kicklebury shirked away from the 
concert ; and I saw her in the play-room again, going round 
and round the table ; and, lying in ambush behind the yournal 
dcs Debuts^ I marked how, after looking stealthily round, my 
lady whipped a piece of money under the croupier’s elbow, and 


THE KICKLEBURYS ON THE RHINE. 


157 

(there having been no coin there previously) I saw a florin on 
the Zero. 

She lost that; and walked away. Then she came back and 
put down two florins on a number, and lost again, and became 
very red and angry ; then she retreated, and came back a third 
time, and a seat being vacated by a player. Lady Kicklebury 
sat down at the verdant board. Ah me ! She had a pretty 
good evening, and carried off a little money again that night. 
The next day was Sunday : she gave two florins at the collec- 
tion at church, to Fanny’s surprise at mamma’s liberality. On 
this night of course .there was no play. Her ladyship wrote 
letters, and read a sermon. 

But the next night she was back at the table ; and won very 
plentifully, until the little Russian sprite made his appearance, 
when it seemed that her luck changed. She began to bet upon 
him, and the young Calmuck lost too. Her ladyship’s temper 
went along with her money : first she backed the Calmuck, and 
then she played against him. When she played against him, 
his luck turned ; and he began straightway to win. She put 
on more and more money as she lost : her winnings went : 
gold came out of secret pockets. She had but a florin left at 
last, and tried it on a number, and failed. She got up to go 
away. I watched her, and I watched Mr. Justice ^acus, too, 
who put down a Napoleon when he thought nobody was looking. 

The next day my Lady Kicklebury walked over to the 
money-changers, where she changed a couple of circular notes. 
She was at the table that night again ; and the next night, and 
the next night, and the next. 

By about the fifth day she was like a wild woman. She 
scolded so, that Hirsch, the courier, said he should retire from 
monsieur’s service, as he was not hired by Lady Kicklebury : 
that Bowman gave warning, and told another footman in the 
building that he wouldn’t stand the old cat no longer, blow 
him if he would : that the maid (who was a Kicklebury girl) 
and Fanny cried : and that Mrs. Milliken’s maid. Finch, com- 
plained to her mistress, who ordered her husband to remon- 
strate with her mother. Milliken remonstrated with his usual 
mildness, and, of course, was routed by her ladyship. Mrs. 
Milliken said, “ Give me the daggers,” and came to her hus- 
band’s rescue. A battle royal ensued ; the scared Milliken 
hanging about his blessed Lavinia, and entreating and implor- 
ing lier to be calm. Mrs. Milliken calm. She asserted 
her dignity as mistress of her own family : as controller of her 
own household, as wife of her adored husband ; and she toK 


THE KICKLEBURYS ON THE RHINE. 


i58 

her mamma, that with her or here she must not interfere ; that 
she knew her duty as a child : but that she also knew it as a 

wife, as a.-. The rest of the sentence was drowned, as 

Milliken, rushing to her, called her his soul’s angel, his adored 
blessing. 

Lady Kicklebury remarked that Shakspeare was very right 
in stating how much sharper than a thankless tooth it is to have 
a serpent child. 

Mrs. Milliken said, the conversation could not be carried 
on in this manner : that it was best her mamma should now 
know, once for all, that the way in which §he assumed the com- 
mand at Pigeoncot was intolerable; that all the servants had 
given warning, and it was with the greatest difficulty they could 
be soothed : and that, as their living together only led to quar- 
rels and painful recriminations (the calling her, after her for 
bearance, a serpent child, was an expression which she would 
hope to forgive and forget,) they had better part. 

Lady Kicklebury wears a front, and, I make no doubt, a 
complete jasey ; or she certainly would have let down her 
back hair at this minute, so overpowering were her feelings, 
and so bitter her indignation at her daughter’s black ingrati- 
tude. She intimated some of her sentiments, by ejaculatory 
conjurations of evil. She hoped her daughter might 7iot feel 
what ingratitude was ; that she might never have children to 
turn on her and bring her to the grave with grief. 

“ Bring me to the grave with fiddlestick ! ” Mrs. Milliken 
said with some asperity. “ And, as we are going to part, 
mamma, and as Horace has paid everyihmg on the journey as 
yet, and we have only brought a very few circular notes with 
us, perhaps you will have the kindness to give him your share 
of the travelling expenses — for you, for Fanny, and your two 
servants whom you would bring with you : and the man has 
only been a perfect hindrance and great useless log, and our 
courier has had to do everythmg. Your share is now eighty-two 
pounds.” 

Lady Kicklebury at this gave three screams, so loud that 
even the resolute Lavinia stopped in her speech. Her lady- 
ship looked wildly : “ Lavinia ! Horace ! Fanny my child,” 
she said, “come here, and listen to your mother’s shame.” 

“ What ? ” cried Horace, aghast. 

“ I am ruined ! I am a beggar ! Yes ; a beggar. I have 
lost all — all at yonder dreadful table.” 

“How do you mean all? How much is all?” asked 
Horace. 


THE KICKLEBUKYS ON THE RHINE. 


159 

“ All the money I brought with me, Horace. I intended 
to have paid the whole expenses of the journey • yours, this 
ungrateful child’s — everything. But, a week ago, having seen 
a lovely baby’s lace dress at the lace-shop ; and — and — won 
enough at wh-wh-whoo-ist to pay for it, all but two-two florins 
— in an evil moment I went to the roulette-table — and lost — 
every shilling ; and now, on my knees before you, I confess my 
shame.” 

I am not a tragic jDainter, and certainly won’t attempt to 
depict this harrowing scene. But what could she mean by 
saying she wished to pay everything.? She had but two 
twenty-pound notes : and how she was to have paid all the 
expenses of the tour with that small sum, I cannot conjecture. 

The confession, however, had the effect of mollifying poor 
Milliken and his wife : after the latter had learned that her 
mamma had no money at all at her London bankers’, and had 
overdrawn her account there, Lavinia consented that Horace 
should advance her fifty pounds upon her ladyship’s solemn 
promise of repayment. 

And now it was agreed that this highly respectable lady 
should return to England, quick as she might : somewhat 
sooner than all the rest of the public did ; and leave Mr. and 
Mrs. Horace Milliken behind her, as the waters were still con- 
sidered highly salutary to that most interesting invalid. And 
to England Lady Kicklebury went ; taking advantage of Lord 
Talboys’ return thither to place herself under his lordship’s 
protection : as if the enormous Bowman was not protector 
sufficient for her ladyship ; and as if Captain Hicks would 
have allowed any mortal man, any German student, any French 
tourist, any Prussian whiskerando, to do a harm to Miss 
Fanny ! For though Hicks is not a brilliant or poetical genius, 
I am bound to say that the fellow has good sense, good man- 
ners, and a good heart ; and with these qualities, a competent 
sum of money, and a pair of exceedingly handsome mus- 
taches, perhaps the poor little Mrs. Launcelot Hicks may be 
happy. 

No accident befell Lady Kicklebury on her voyage home- 
wards : but she got one more lesson at Aix-la-Chapelle, which 
may serve to make her ladyship more cautious for the future : 
for, seeing Madame la Princesse de Mogador enter into a car- 
riage on the railway, into which Lord Talboys followed, nothing 
would content Lady Kicklebury but to rush into the carriage 
after this noble pair ; and the vehicle turned out to be what is 
called on the German lines, and what I wish were established 


i6o the KICKLEBURYS on the RHINE. 

in England, the Rauch Coupe. Having seated himself in this 
vehicle, and looked rather sulkity at my lady. Lord Talboys 
began to smoke : which, as the son of an English earl, heir to 
many thousands per annum. Lady Kicklebury permitted him to 
do. And she introduced herself to Madame la Princesse de 
Mogador, mentioning to her highness that she had the pleasure 
of meeting Madame la Princesse at Rougetnoirbourg ; that she. 
Lady K., was the mother of the Chevalier de Kicklebury, who 
had the advantage of the acquaintance of Madame la Prin- 
cesse ; and that she hoped Madame la Princesse had enjoyed 
her stay at the waters. To these advances the Princess of 
Mogador returned a gracious and affable salutation, exchanging 
glances of peculiar meaning with two highly respectable bearded 
gentlemen who travelled in her suite ; and, when asked by 
milady whereabouts her highness’s residence was at Paris, said 
that her hotel was in the Rue Notre Dame de Lorette : where 
Lady Kicklebury hoped to have the honor of waiting upon Ma- 
dame la Princesse de Mogador. 

But when one of the bearded gentlemen called the princess 
by the familiar name of Fifine, and the other said, “ Veux-tu 
fumer, Mogador } ” and the princess actually took a cigar anil 
began to smoke. Lady Kicklebury was aghast, and trembled ; 
and presently Lord Talboys burst into a loud fit of laughter. 

“ What is the cause of your lordship’s amusement ? ” asked 
the dowager, looking very much frightened, and blushing like 
a maiden of sixteen. 

“ Excuse me. Lady Kicklebury, but I can’t help it,” he said. 
“You’ve been talking to your opposite neighbor — she don’t 
understand a word of English — and calling her princess and 
highness, and she’s no more a princess than you or I. She is a 
little milliner in the street she mentioned, and she dances at 
Mabille and Chateau Rouge.” 

Hearing these two familiar names, the princess looked hard 
at Lord Talboys, but he never lost countenance ; and at the 
next station Lady Kicklebury rushed out of the smoking-car- 
riage and returned to her own place ; where, I dare say. Captain 
Hicks and Miss Fanny were delighted once more to have the 
advantage of her company and conversation. And so they went 
back to England, and the Kickleburys were no longer seen on 
the Rhine. If her ladyship is not cured of hunting after great 
people, it will not be for want of warning : but which of us in 
life has not had many warnings ; and is it for lack of them that 
we stick to our little failings still ? 

When the Kickleburys were gone, that merry little Rouget- 
noirbourg did not seem the same place to me, somehow. The 


THE KICh'LEBURYS ON THE RHINE. i6i 

sun shone still, but the wind came down cold from the purple 
hills ; the band played, but their tunes were stale ; the prom- 
enaders paced the alleys, but I knew all their faces : as i 
looked out of my windows in the Tissisch House upon the great 
blank casements lately occupied by the Kickleburys, and 
remembered what a pretty face I had seen looking thence bur 
a few days back, I cared not to look any longer ; and though 
Mrs. Millikin did invite me to tea, and talked fine arts and 
poetry over the meal, both the beverage and the conversation 
seemed very weak and insipid to me, and I fell asleep once in 
my chair opposite that highly cultivated being. “ Let us go 
back, Lankin,” said I to the Serjeant, and he was nothing loth ; 
for most of the other serjeants, barristers, and Queen’s counsel 
were turning homewards, by this time, the period of term time 
summoning them all to the Temple. 

So we went straight one day to Biberich on the Rhine, and 
found the little town full of Britons, all trooping home like our- 
selves. Everybody comes, and everybody goes away again, at 
about the same time. The Rhine innkeepers say that* their 
customers cease with a single day almost : — that in three days 
they shall have ninety, eighty, a hundred guests ; on the fourth, 
ten or eight. We do as our neighbors do. Though we don’t 
speak to each other much when we are out a pleasuring, we 
take our holiday in common, and go back to our work in gangs. 
Little Biberich was so full, that Lankin and I could not get 
rooms at the large inns frequented by other persons of fashion, 
and could only procure a room between us, “ at the German 
House, where you find English comfort,” says the advertisement, 
“with German prices.” 

But oh, the English comfort of those beds ! How did Lan- 
kin manage in his, with his great long legs ? How did I toss 
and tumble in mine ; which, small as it was, I was not destined 
to enjoy alone, but to pass the night in company with an- 
thropophagous wretched reptiles, who took their horrid meal off 
an English Christian ! I thought the morning would never 
come ; and when the tardy dawn at length arrived, and as I 
was in my first sleep, dreaming of Miss Fanny, behold I was 
wakened up by the Serjeant, already dressed and shaven, and 
who said, “ Rise, Titmarsh, the steamer will be here in three- 
quarters of an hour.” And the modest gentleman retired, and 
left me to dress. 


The next morning we had passed by the rocks and towers, 
the old familiar landscapes, the gleaming towns by the riverside, 


62 


'FIIE KICKLEBURYS ON THE RHINE. 


and the green vineyards combed along the hills, and when I woke 
up, it was at a great hotel at Cologne, and it was not sunrise yet. 

Deutz lay opposite, and over Deutz the dusky sky was red- 
dened. The hills were veiled in the mist and the gray. The 
gray river flowed underneath us ; the steamers were roosting 
along the quays, a light keeping watch in the cabins here and 
there, and its reflections quivering in the water. As I look, the 
sky-line towards the east grows redder and redder. A long- 
troop of gray horsemen winds down the river road, and passes 
over the bridge of boats. You might take them for ghosts, 
those gray horsemen, so shadowy do they look ; but you hear 
the trample of their hoofs as they pass over the planks. Every 
minute the dawn twinkles up into the twilight ; and over 
Deutz the heaven blushes brighter. The quays begin to fill 
with men : the carts begin to creak and rattle, and wake the 
sleeping echoes. Ding, ding, ding, the steamers’ bells begin to 
ring : the people on board to stir and wake : the lights may be 
extinguished, and take their turn of sleep : the active boats 
shake themselves, and push out into the river: the great 
bridg'e opens, and gives them passage : the church bells 
of the city begin to clink : the cavalry trumpets blow from 
the opposite bank : the sailor is at the wheel, the porter at 
his burden, the soldier at his musket, and the priest at his 
prayers. * * * * 

And lo ! in a flash of crimson splendor, with blazing scarlet 
clouds running before his chariot, and heralding his majestic 
approach, God’s sun arises upon the world, and all nature 
wakens and brightens. 

O glorious spectacle of light and life ! O beatific symbol 
of Power, Love, Joy, Beauty! Let us look at thee with humble 
wonder, and thankfully acknowledge and adore. What gracious 
forethought is it — what generous and loving provision, that 
deigns to prepare for our eyes and to soothe our hearts with 
such a splendid morning festival I For these magnificent 
bounties of heaven to us, let us be thankful, even that we can 
feel thankful — (for thanks surely is the noblest effort, as it is 
the greatest delight, of the gentle soul) — and so, a grace for this 
feast, let all say who partake of it. 

See ! the mist clears off Drachenfels, and it looks out from 
the distance, and bids us a friendly farewell. Farewell to holi- 
day and sunshine ; farewell to kindly sport and pleasant leisure ! 
Let us say good-by to the Rhine, friend. Fogs, and cares, and 
labor are awaiting us by the Thames ; and a kind face or two 
looking out for us to cheer and bid us welcome. 

END OF “ THE KICKLEBURYS ON THE RHINE.” 


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Yours, in the bonds, JAY GOULD. 


Windsor Castle. 

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Tewksbury. Mass. 

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PRESIDENTIAL MANSION. 

Washington, D. C. 

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Affectionately, CHET. 


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Daniel Deronda, Part il 20 

AltiornPeto, by Oliphant 80 

By the Ga^e of the Sea, by David 

Christie Murray 15 

Tales of a Traveller, by Irving, . 
lilfe and Voyages of Columbus, 
by Washington Irving, Parti. .20 
Life and Voy.aget3 of Columbus, 
by Washinjrton Irv ing, Part 11.20 

The Pilgrim 8 Progreas 80 

Martin Chuzzlewit, by Charles 

Dickens. Part I .20 

Martin Chuzziewit, Part II 20 

Thcophrae. U.S Such, Geo. Eliot.. .20 
Disarmed, ’'f. }Tt.hflm-Ed\varda..l5 
Eugene Aram by Lord Lytton, 20 
The fcpaaish Gypsy and Other* 

Poems, by George Eliot, 20 

Cast Up by the Sea Baker. 20 

Mill on the Floss, Eliot, Pt. I. . .15 

Mill on the Floss, Part II .1# 

Brother Jacob and Mr, GTfll’s 
Love Story, by George Eliot. ..10 
Wi-eckJi In th« of ids 99 





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